Weird SSH problem - Write failed: Broken pipe

[Dave Horsfall]

Anyone else having SSH "Write failed: Broken pipe" lately, after updating 
a while back?  I keep a window open to my (FreeBSD) mail server all the 
time (I handle my own email/DNS etc).

Client is 10.10.5, OpenSSH_6.2p2, OSSLShim 0.9.8r 8 Dec 2011

That OSSLShim date looks rather old...  But:

ozzie:~ dave$ ls -ltc `locate bin/ssh`
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1384208 Aug 15 04:19 /usr/sbin/sshd
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1222640 Aug 15 04:19 /usr/bin/ssh
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   726752 Aug 15 04:19 /usr/bin/ssh-add
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   744640 Aug 15 04:19 /usr/bin/ssh-agent
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1005328 Aug 15 04:19 /usr/bin/ssh-keygen
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   681728 Aug 15 04:19 /usr/bin/ssh-keyscan
ozzie:~ dave$ type ssh
ssh is hashed (/usr/bin/ssh)

No amount of playing with SSH keepalives etc will fix it; this was working 
up until about a month ago.

No amount of "-vvvv" etc will reveal the problem; it craps itself just 
like that; my various remote "tail -F /var/log/blah" windows, being pretty 
busy, do not time out thus.

No point in running the other end under GDB, as it (Alpine on FreeBSD) is 
heavily multi-threaded, and what little I can discern does not reveal 
anything useful anyway.

I dimly recall (perhaps here, or perhaps elsewhere) that Apple's SSH (as 
indicated by the use of "/usr/bin/ssh") is thoroughly busted; not in a 
crypto sense, but in a "don't use it; use the MacPorts version if you wish 
to retain your sanity" sense...

Should I be using a version of SSH/SSL not blessed by Cupertino etc?

Thanks.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
 I'll support shark-culling when they have been observed walking on dry land.