🚀 go-pugleaf

From: geof@su-shasta.arpa


Actually, a telnet SERVER is an example of an unmonitored network
service.  Class #3 was the number in my listing, I believe.  I left it
out of my examples because the telnet protocol has higher-level probing
in the form of NOOP negotiations.  Few telnet server programs actually
exercise this option, though.  Interpret my last message as a harangue
at them and other server implementations of this class.

When I see idle network connections on the system, I exercise them (and
exorcise them) by sending a terminal message to the idle user which
says "are you still there".  The negative response is that the user's
TCP connection times out (or -- usually -- gets reset) and the spurious
login goes away.  I guess a quick fix for a harried system
administrator who doesn't want to hack code (or can't -- not everyone
has sources these days) is to use /etc/cron to run a program once every
hour or so that just sends a useless message to every network login.  I
guess that you could send a "^A" or something that would tend not to be
visible, except for messing up an Emacs screen occasionally.

- Geof