Prevent SSH from stalling when reloading IPTABLES

Hello gentlemen,

On CentOS Servers, whenever iptables is restarted, the SSH connection stalls and I have to close the terminal tab to reconnect. I don't remember this being an issue on other systems, however I cannot find the cause via Google.

Do you know how to maintain an SSH connection throughout a firewall restart?

I've tried ClientAliveInterval 15 on the server.

[root@mail ~]# service iptables restart iptables: Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: filter [ OK ] iptables: Flushing firewall rules: [ OK ] iptables: Unloading modules: [ OK ] iptables: Applying firewall rules: 

Many thanks,

kevin