Comment by halter73
2 years ago
AFAIK, all Linux distros plus Windows and macOS have TCP keepalives off by default as mandated by the RFC 1122. Even when they are optionally turned on using SO_KEEPALIVE, the interval defaults to two hours because that is the minimum default interval allowed by spec. That can then be optionally reduced with something like /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_time (system wide) or TCP_KEEPIDLE (per socket).
By default, completely idle TCP connections will stay alive indefinitely from the perspective of both peers even if their physical connection is severed.
Implementors MAY include "keep-alives" in their TCP
implementations, although this practice is not universally
accepted. If keep-alives are included, the application MUST
be able to turn them on or off for each TCP connection, and
they MUST default to off.
Keep-alive packets MUST only be sent when no data or
acknowledgement packets have been received for the
connection within an interval. This interval MUST be
configurable and MUST default to no less than two hours.
OK you're right - it's coming back to me now. I've been spoiled by software that enables keep-alive on sockets.