I think you meant -N, not -n. From the man page[1]: -N Do not execute a remote command. This is useful for just for‐ warding ports (pro

I think you meant -N, not -n. From the man page[1]: -N Do not execute a remote command. This is useful for just for‐ warding ports (protocol version 2 only). -n Redirects stdin from /dev/null (actually, prevents reading from stdin). This must be used when ssh is run in the background. [1]: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ssh&sektion=1 http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ssh&sektion=1