[ale] Using ~/.ssh/config Better?

[jdp at algoloma.com (JD)]

At the meeting last night a few of us were talking about the use of the
~/.ssh/config file to make remote ssh-based connections easier.  I use
these all the time, especially to simplify use of non-standard ports or
different userids across different machines. With the config file,
there's no need to specify the alternate userid or port for any of those
tools. Here's an example stanza:

# start file ==================
host h2
 user pete
 hostname home-place.dyndns.org
 port 42080
# end file ---------------------

To connect to "ssh -p 42080 pete at home-place.dyndns.org", it is just

$ ssh h2

That's it.

That got me wondering. Besides using key-based authentication with this
file, are there other uses or tricks that I could be using with this
file to further simplify ssh, sftp, scp, rsync, rdiff-backup and other
ssh-based connections?