[Dxspider-support] User Timeout?

[Rene Olsen]

Hi Steve.

You wrote this for Dirk, but I'll give my two cents worth of opinion.

The disconnects with telnet connections, is probably due to timeout parameters in many 
routers for home use. In many routers this timeout, unfortunately can't even be changed by 
the user. It is a hard coded setting. Quite a few routers has as low as 10 minutes without 
traffic, and they break the connetion. Some routers even seem to have some kind of traffic 
settings, which makes them think that a dx-cluster telnet connection is idle, even when there 
is a few spots being exchanged now and then.

Recently I upgraded the firmware of my Zyxel router, but ended by having to downgrade to 
the previous version, because they had made some change to the internal timeout settings.
Sometimes I could be connected to the dx-cluster for 20 minutes, other times 1 hour. With 
the old firmware I can be connected for weeks.

I believe that the router manufacturers, does this kind of closing of what seems to be idle 
connections, to limit the number af open connections, and NAT table entries. But maybe 
someone can shed some more light on that.

The setting you have as "# the interval between unsolicited prompts if not traffic", is just the 
time it takes before sending a propmt to the users, if there have been no other traffic. The 
default I believe is 11 minutes.

Vy 73 de René / OZ1LQH

On 3 Jul 2011 at 11:19, Steve - AA4U wrote:

> Dirk,
> 
> I've been running a DXSpider node for a long time. Over the past couple 
> of years as more telnet user programs pop-up, I've noticed an increase 
> in frequent disconnects during minimal DX Spot activity. I'm certain (in 
> this case) this to either due to the user's ISP connection or not 
> setting their "keep alive" timer within the software.  I've always sent 
> an email to the user and tried to coach them into correctly setting the 
> "keep alive" parameters, etc. However, recently I got to wondering about 
> some of the inner workings of DXSpider regarding telnet users:
> 
> - Is there a telnet timeout built-in? What is the default?
> - If not, could there be one configurable by the SysOp?
> 
> - What does the following line in \spider\local\ DXVars.pm control:
> 
> # the interval between unsolicited prompts if not traffic
> $user_interval = 11*60;
> 
> Thank you in advance.
> 
> 73, Steve - AA4U
> 
> 
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