telnet/rlogin timeout

[simonb]

Is there a setting which would timeout connected but idle telnet/rlogin sessions. Telnet/rlogin sessions from my FC1 box to Solaris servers appear to timeout after a couple of hours. Is this expected behaviour ? and if so is it configurable ? Solaris to Solaris and windows to Solaris appear to be ok in that the telnet/rlogin connections stay alive.

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Void Main]

If you use korn shell for your login shell on the Solaris box and your TMOUT environment varible is set to something other than 0 then yes, your login will timeout. Of course Solaris->Solaris should also timeout in this case so that is probably not the answer unless some sort of keepalive packets are being sent by the Solaris and Windows client that aren't by the Linux client. Do you have the same problem with ssh? I'll fire up a Linux->Solaris telnet session and see if I get the same behavior. I don't ever stay idle that long though. :)

[Linux Frank]

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0106.1/0694.html

The reply at the bottom, seems to suggest a location for altering the timeout - I thought it was BAD BAD BAD to keep any telnet connection live when idle?

Of course this may not be what you actually want.

[Void Main]

I don't know man, I've had a telnet connection open for a few hours now and it hasn't disconnected. I'll leave it up over night just to make sure. My test is from an RH9->Sol8 box though so it isn't exactly the same.

[simonb]

I didn't have the problem on RH9 - it only started with FC1. All a bit confusing. It sounds like there is no standard setting that can be tweaked to control this. I'll dig a bit deeper and try looking at some network traces to establish where the connection is breaking etc. Many thanks for your help.

[Void Main]

Ok, I'll check out a FC1 install. Yeah, the RH9 connection stayed open all night. I really would like to know what shell you are using on the Solaris machine (tcsh, csh, ksh, etc). If you are using tcsh do you have the autologout setting set?

Code: Select all

set | grep autologout


and if you use KSH do you have the TMOUT variable set:

Code: Select all

set | grep TMOUT


If you do, it is possible that RH9 and Windows are sending some sort of keepalive packets where FC1 might not be and your session is timing out and logging you off based on your Solaris environment setting. If this is the case then it could be solved by changing your autologout or TMOUT variables, or figuringout a way to send some keepalive packets (maybe revert back to the RH9 telnet client in a worst case scenerio).

[simonb]

Looks more likely to be related to problems with my network connection than FC1. Thanks for all your assistance in trying to diagnose the problem.