How to keep a vpn ssh socket connection alive?

Question

I'm running the following script to create a connection to a vpn.

sshpass -p <pass> ssh -Nf -C -D <port> <user>@<ip>

Problem: sometimes the socket shuts down silently (maybe if not in use).

How can I add some kind of "keep alive" statement to the ssh connection?

Answer 1

With the help of link provided above, I'm trying now as follows:

...shh -o ServerAliveInterval=60 -o TCPKeepAlive=yes.

I've not had any drops since using it.