Sessions not terminating on terminal disconnect

[Randy Hancock]

We currently have two Alpha systems, ES40 and ES47. Many of our users login via Intermec 2425 hand held wireless terminals or hi-lo mounted 2455 wireless terminals. These connect through Intermec model 2100 access points. The problem we are noticing is that when a user loses connection from these terminals to the access point, the session on the Alpha does not recognize this, and stays active resulting in the user's inability to log in again until someone manually intervenes and terminates their process. It seems obvious to me that there is some setting somewhere either on the access point or within OpenVMS that is not properly set to recognize the loss of communication with the wireless device. Can anyone point me in the right direction to solve this problem? Thanks!

[Ian Miller. · Accepted solution]

what protocol are you using between the terminals and the VMS systems and what version of VMS are you using?

If telnet, have you looked at tcp keepidle settings?

[Randy Hancock]

OpenVMS V7.3-2. Do you mean TCP setting on Alpha?

[Ian Miller.]

yes, one cause of this I have seen is the keepidle timeout being large so it takes ages for the VMS system to know that the connection has gone.

[Randy Hancock]

makes sense, now as this is not something I do on a daily basis, do I find this within TCPIP? I.e., how do I get there and see what the setting is?

[Ian Miller.]

which tcpip product are you using and which version is it?

Do
sysconfig -q inet
and look for tcp_keep

(you may have had to define the sysconfig commmand. e.g @SYS$STARTUP:TCPIP$DEFINE_COMMANDS )

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

do tcpip show servi telnet/fu
and check "socket opts" for the "Keepalive" word.

If not present : tcpip set servi telnet /sock=keepalive

Then do a type of tcpip$etc:sysconfigtab.dat
and check for tcp_keepcnt, tcp_keepidle and tcp_keepintvl. To abort the telnet after 5 minutes you could set them to 5, 120 and 120 (increase 5 to the number of minutes). Default is very high (2 hours ?).

Then restart tcp (will abort a lot, better reboot).

Wim

[Randy Hancock]

Hallelujah!

Just before you replied, I discovered the
sysconfig -q inet
command. I had differing reports that this did not used to happen before we purchased and installed our ES47, so I first looked at the configuration on the ES40:

tcp_keepidle=150

Then looked at our ES47

tcp_keepidle=14400

Well, I guess a user won't be too upset waiting 2 1/2 minutes to log back on. Chances are he won't even notice it. But 4 hours??! I guess it is set to the maximum.

Thanks for your quick response. Should have left a message on this forum sooner, this has been dogging us for months! I will be surprised if this does not address the problem...

[Randy Hancock]

Should have thought of this before last reply. Is this a dynamic setting, or will I need to wait until reboot for it to take effect?

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

But the keepalive is only used if telnet has the socket option AND you use telnet (could also be rlogin or something dedicated).

Wim