It took a while to get this to work, see here for a full example and explanations.

In short you need to:

1. create an ssh config file that hold information about the ssh session

   remote=your_ip_address echo "HostName $remote" > ssh_config echo "User root" >> ssh_config echo "ControlMaster auto" >> ssh_config echo "ControlPath ~/.ssh/%C" >> ssh_config master_ssh='ssh -F ssh_config'

2. start the master session

   $master_ssh -MNf $remote

3. do the rsyncs

   rsync -e "$master_ssh" $opts $remote:/etc/some_file1 local_directory/ rsync -e "$master_ssh" $opts $remote:/etc/some_file2 local_directory/ rsync -e "$master_ssh" $opts $remote:/etc/some_file3 local_directory/

4. close the master session

   $master_ssh -O exit $remote

It took a while to get this to work, see here for a full example and explanations.

In short you need to:

1. create an ssh config file that hold information about the ssh session

   remote=your_ip_address
   echo "HostName $remote" > ssh_config
   echo "User root" >> ssh_config
   echo "ControlMaster auto" >> ssh_config
   echo "ControlPath ~/.ssh/%C" >> ssh_config
   master_ssh='ssh -F ssh_config'
   

2. start the master session

   $master_ssh -MNf $remote
   

3. do the rsyncs

   rsync -e "$master_ssh" $opts $remote:/etc/some_file1  local_directory/
   rsync -e "$master_ssh" $opts $remote:/etc/some_file2  local_directory/
   rsync -e "$master_ssh" $opts $remote:/etc/some_file3  local_directory/
   

4. close the master session

   $master_ssh -O exit $remote