SSH server, by default, allows multiple active connections at any given time. Multiple SSH connections shouldn't be a concern for most server, but if you're running a public server or a jump server/bastion host, you might need to set a cap to the allowed number of concurrent connections.

Related: How to SSH via jump server or bastion host

SSH is resource-intensive, especially when transferring files using scp or other methods, as the encryption is computationally expensive and could quickly hog an entire CPU core per session.

You can set a limit on the maximum number of users allowed to login to the SSH server by configuring both MaxStartups and MaxSessionss options in the server's sshd_config file.

Steps to limit concurrent connection on SSH server:

  1. Open terminal application.
  2. Open sshd_config file using your preferred text editor. 

    $ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config [sudo] password for user:

  3. Look for MaxStartups option and set the value to the maximum simultaneous connections to allow. 

    MaxStartups 10
    MaxStartups         Specifies the maximum number of concurrent unau‐         thenticated connections to the SSH daemon.  Addi‐         tional connections will be dropped until authenti‐         cation succeeds or the LoginGraceTime expires for         a connection.  The default is 10:30:100.          Alternatively, random early drop can be enabled by         specifying the three colon separated values         start:rate:full (e.g. "10:30:60").  sshd(8) will         refuse connection attempts with a probability of         rate/100 (30%) if there are currently start (10)         unauthenticated connections.  The probability in‐         creases linearly and all connection attempts are         refused if the number of unauthenticated connec‐         tions reaches full (60).

    Colon-separated value gives you more refined control. The following example will block 50% connection once it reaches 5, and will block 100% connection once the total is 10 concurrent connection. 

    MaxStartups 5:50:10

    Add the line if it doesn't already exist and remove # at the beginning of the line if it exists.

  4. Look for MaxSessions option and set the value to the maximum simultaneous sessions to allow. 

    MaxSessions 5
    MaxSessions         Specifies the maximum number of open         shell, login or subsystem (e.g. sftp)         sessions permitted per network connec‐         tion.  Multiple sessions may be estab‐         lished by clients that support connection         multiplexing.  Setting MaxSessions to 1         will effectively disable session multi‐         plexing, whereas setting it to 0 will         prevent all shell, login and subsystem         sessions while still permitting forward‐         ing.  The default is 10.

    Add the line if it doesn't already exist and remove # at the beginning of the line if it exists.

  5. Restart SSH service for changes to take effect. 

    $ sudo systemctl restart ssh

    Related: How to start, restart and stop SSH server service