Re: Socket Server Multiple Connection Question - part 2

Hi Jerry,

So my question (to answer the consultant's question) is, is it possible to automatically terminate the 'previous' connections in the socket server?

I'm not 100% sure that I follow this message... but the close() API is what closes connections. When you're done with a given connect (by that, I mean a socket that was returned by the accept() API at some point earlier) call the close() API to terminate it.

I (like the consultant) find it a little strange that you'd leave a connection open, but idle, for more than 30 minutes.

Normally, that sort of scenario only happens with long-running interactive connections. For example, TELNET (or Telnet 3270 "tn3270" or Telnet 5250 "tn5250") opens up a terminal emulator that's connected to it's host by a TCP socket. When the user sits idle at the keyboard for 30 minutes, you could have a connection that's idle for 30 minutes... but that generally only happens an an interactive scenario, because you're waiting for a person.

A program-to-program connection would not normally be idle like this, since computers don't typically stop and do nothing for 30 minutes straight :)

Of course, none of us can tell you what the "right" solution to your problem is -- that's a business issue, and you're the person who is designing and implementing the solution. So maybe a long-running single TCP connection is the right choice for you. In that case, you'll need to set your VPN connection to never time-out.

But in most cases, TCP software doesn't keep one long static connection. It's disconnected until it needs something from the other host, then it connects, and only stays connected while it needs to be... something that sits idle for 30 minutes would be an error in this paradigm.