Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!VAX.FTP.COM!stev
From: stev@VAX.FTP.COM
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: SO_KEEPALIVE considered harmful?
Message-ID: <8906021442.AA00541@vax.ftp.com>
Date: 2 Jun 89 14:42:19 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 26


*Phil,
*
*As a test-of-concept:  I assume that you have no objection to a TCP
*implementation's being able to do keepalives, under the control of the
*application, where both the fact of keepalives AND their periodicity
*can be specified; and the effect of a timeout is a signal to the
*application, not an abort?
*
*Dave


if an application wants a keep alive mechanism, it should do it
itself, sending  a byte of garbage data, and abusing the sequence
numbers is not the way to go about this . . . . 

and hopefully, the people doing the keepalive mechanism will alow
either end to disable it. if i startup an ftp to run all night
sucking over the latest X distribution, i dont want it being aborted
because a gateway goes down for an hour for PM.



stev knowles
ftp software
stev@ftp.com