Keepalive Notes

A keepalive packet generally has a TCP ACK configured with a sequence number set to one less than the current number used on the connection. Any machine receiving a nudge from such a packet will simply respond with the correct sequence number and, Frankenstein jokes aside, announce that it is indeed alive.

These types of packets are sometimes empty and generally have three associated parameters. The retry parameter will declare how many times to send a packet before coming to the conclusion that the other end of the connection has given up the ghost. The time setting is configured as the frequency of the checks, and finally the interval dictates the length of time between two sent packets if no response is received.

Inside the kernel, you can alter these settings by editing these values in the eye-watering pseudo-filesystem known and loved as /proc. One file, in this case, is /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_time, and you can edit it