SSH & Connection reset by peer

[tom r <forums@reinertson.com>]

I'm using SSH to tunnel thru my company's firewall to allow easy access to the 
servers inside the firewall when I'm at home.  On the server side I issue 
this command:

ssh -f -C -R2001:localhost:23 pctom sleep 8h

this connects to my home pc, which has an external address via the cable 
modem.  The sleep command keeps the connection open so that when I get home I 
can enter this command:

telnet localhost 2001

This way I can telnet into the corporate server via the ssh tunnel.  This 
worked very well when my home system was running woody (the corporate server 
is an old release of SuSE and hasn't changed) but when I upgraded to sid I 
ran into this problem.  Instead of the connection staying up for 8 hours, it 
terminates after exactly 2 hours of idle time with the server reporting:

Read from remote host pctom: Connection reset by peer

The log files on the server and my home pc give no indication of what's wrong.  
I've read some previous posts about this problem and folks decided it must be 
a faulty connection thru the cable modem.  This is not the problem here.  The 
disconnect always occurs after exactly 2 hours of idle time and only started 
happening when my home system went to sid.

I can only assume there is some timeout parameter somewhere on my pc but I 
don't know where to look.  I sure would appreciate any guidance someone can 
offer.

Thanks.
Tom