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1 total messages Started by Russ Nelson Sun, 19 May 1991 17:13
Re: Socket Keep-awake Option?
#217
Author: Russ Nelson
Date: Sun, 19 May 1991 17:13
27 lines
1888 bytes
In article <9105190241.AA16679@ucsd.edu> Jay Maynard <S0JM@ADMIN.HSC.UTH.TMC.EDU> writes:

   > Keep-alives are the work of the devil.

   Aw, cmon, Russ...tell us what you _really_ think. :-)

I'll not repeat the language I used when a VMS system I was using kept
giving up on ICMP Unreachable on an established connection.  Now, I
happened to be using the connection at the time, but even if I hadn't,
the ICMP Unreachable from the keep-alive would have killed the
connection.

   > If it's only temporary, why give up on it?

   That depends on your idea of temporary. In the Internet world, temporary
   is a few minutes. In the ham packet world, temporary is a few days.

So?  When your resources are limited, it makes even *more* sense to
conserve them by retaining connections.  In the 1200 baud world, the
most precious resource is the data already sent, not TCP connections
on the hosts.  Far better to keep connections hanging around in the
hopes that you can resume your transfer, than to give up because of
some pre-determined magic timeout value.

--russ <nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
Clear cutting is criminal, spiking trees is criminal, and using hyperbole of
this magnitude in a serious discussion is criminal.  -- Irv Chidsey
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