Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!ucbvax!MATHOM.CISCO.COM!BILLW
From: BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM (William "Chops" Westfield)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Monitoring TCP/IP sockets
Message-ID: <12657895596.14.BILLW@mathom.cisco.com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 00:57:12 GMT
References: <9101291553.AA06606@litwin.jpl.nasa.gov.>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 14


    I have a program that uses TCP/IP sockets and needs to know quickly,
    within a second or so, if the physical connection between the two
    systems is broken.

Foo.  tcp/ip is designed for reliability over many media.  You have no
guarantee that your packet will even get to its destination within a
second, even if the network is working perfectly.

If you really need to know that quickly whether the network has gone
away, tcp/ip is not a suitable protocol to be using.

BillW
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