figured out a long time ago that having inline comments on the same line as configuration settings causes ssh to blow up with a parse error and I forgot to include it

.ssh/config

@@ -1,15 +1,25 @@
 # some commonly set options
 Host *
-  LogLevel INFO #verbosity used when logging messages from ssh, QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE, DEBUG, DEBUG1, DEBUG2, DEBUG3
+  # verbosity used when logging messages from ssh, QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE, DEBUG, DEBUG1, DEBUG2, DEBUG3
-  StrictHostKeyChecking ask #if YES, never auto add host keyes and refuses to connecto to hosts that have changed. YES, NO, ASK
+  LogLevel INFO
-  UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/known_hosts #known hosts file database location
+  # if YES, never auto add host keyes and refuses to connecto to hosts that have changed. YES, NO, ASK
-  ServerAliveInterval 30 # timeout in seconds after which if no data has been recieved from the server, ssh will send a keep alive message
+  StrictHostKeyChecking ask  
-  ServerAliveCountMax 120 # the number of times to send a keep alive message in a row, only applies to ssh v2
+  # known hosts file database location
-  VisualHostKey yes #Shows the ssh key image on connection. YES or NO
+  UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/known_hosts
-  Compression no #if the connection should compress. YES or NO
+  # timeout in seconds after which if no data has been recieved from the server, ssh will send a keep alive message
-  PasswordAuthentication yes #If ssh should use password auth. YES or NO
+  ServerAliveInterval 30 
-  PreferredAuthentications publickey #allows ssh to prefer one method of auth over another if there are multiple methods available. gssapi-with-mic, hostbased, publickey, keyboard-interactive, password
+  # the number of times to send a keep alive message in a row, only applies to ssh v2
-  TCPKeepAlive yes #send TCP keep alive messages to the host, which lets us know if the connection dies, but it can give false negatives (if the connection goes down temporarily, you'll get disconnected). YES, NO
+  ServerAliveCountMax 120
+  # Shows the ssh key image on connection. YES or NO
+  VisualHostKey yes 
+  # if the connection should use compression. YES or NO
+  Compression yes 
+  # If ssh should use password auth. YES or NO
+  PasswordAuthentication yes 
+  # allows ssh to prefer one method of auth over another if there are multiple methods available. gssapi-with-mic, hostbased, publickey, keyboard-interactive, password
+  PreferredAuthentications publickey
+  # send TCP keep alive messages to the host, which lets us know if the connection dies, but it can give false negatives (if the connection goes down temporarily, you'll get disconnected). YES, NO
+  TCPKeepAlive yes 
 
   # refer to: https://github.com/FiloSottile/whosthere/blob/master/README.md
   PubkeyAuthentication no