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Forum Discussion

VGF5's avatar
VGF5
Icon for Cumulonimbus rankCumulonimbus
Nov 14, 2017

Session Timeout

Hi DC,   What is the best way to keep the session open for days through the F5 ?   Thanks in advance.  
application delivery
BIG-IP
LTM
Hannes_Rapp's avatar
Hannes_Rapp
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Nov 14, 2017

Option 1: Making F5 non-intrusive middleman - so it behaves similar to a stateless router. If it's a basic application that doesn't use advanced BigIP features (i.e. AFM or ASM inspection, HTTP-aware iRules or APM session management), see my response in this thread https://devcentral.f5.com/questions/tcp-timeout-question-56589comment56406

The above is applicable for HTTP and any non-HTTP apps alike. Works regardless of protocol.

Option 2: Try to implement 

Connection: Keep-Alive
header for HTTP\1.1 apps, or equivalent Session management feature for HTTP\2. Reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Keep-Alive

In BigIP LTM, default 5 minute idle timeout TCP profile will suffice regardless of session lengths. Even in arbitrary scenario of 10 year long session lengths, a profile with 5 min idle timeouts is OK. Just make sure application correctly implements 

Connection: Keep-alive
(or equivalent in HTTP2 that goes by different name)

Regards,