> Courtesy of the useful notes in firebird.conf I was able to
> find down the necessary links for the Windows operating system
> configuration behind this issue. Apparently the default
> Windows KeepAliveTime for a connection is 2 hours.

> I am wondering how short I could make this setting and what
> other impacts it may have if I do make it short?

In case anyone is interested I found the following two links:

https://www.washington.edu/computing/support/windows/UWdomains/w2kservsecchecklist.html

http://www.thinclient.net/technology/metaframe_tips.htm

The first one discusses security concerns and specifies that
5 minutes should be used (instead of the default of 2 hours).

The second discusses the issue for terminal servers (metaframe
is the Citrix add-on to terminal server). It suggests a time
between 1 and 5 minutes.

So I am experimenting with 5 minute timeouts on the problem
Firebird server and we will see how it goes. If all goes well
at 5 minutes I may even try dropping it back to 2 minutes.

I've still not found anything that discusses any potential
downsides to reducing this timeout. I am guessing that too
short would increase network overheads, but how low is too
low is probably very network specific. Is there anything else
wrong with a low timeout? I guess I may find them in the
coming weeks. :-)

--
Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing