For more information regarding the security incident at F5, the actions we are taking to address it, and our ongoing efforts to protect our customers, click here.

Forum Discussion

Jrivas181's avatar
Jrivas181
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Oct 23, 2020

Max Recommended Idle TCP timeout and Keep alive interval

I have a scenario where users are running scripts that run through a virtual server but are getting closed after the default 300 second idle timeout. The reason is the script sends commands to the VS to run and waits for a response. At times the jobs finish under five minutes but there are a lot of jobs that run longer which lead to false positives causing errors.

 

I have increased the tcp idle timout and keep alive temporarily but main question is is there a "MAX" recommended setting for idle timeout and keep alive. I know it can be set to indefinite but I do not know if that is wise as it could lead to port exhaustion.

 

Any tips would be great,

Thanks

application delivery
idle timeout
Keep Alive Interval
LTM

1 Reply

  • boneyard's avatar
    boneyard
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Oct 25, 2020

    no one can give you an exact max recommended setting because we don't know your environment. what works for one doesnt for another. i would go with the advice from this K article: https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K7606

     

    In most cases, F5 recommends that you set the idle timeout to a small-as-possible finite value.

     

    so talk with the people running the scripts or the admin of the server where they run these scripts. what is a valid maximum time these scripts can run. then adjust based on that.