This is caused by an idle timeout value set somewhere in the connection. Neither TERM nor TinyTERM has timeout capabilities — though they have been requested by some customers — so neither will disconnect automatically.

When this happens, check to see if the user is still logged in at the server. If not, then the server is the most likely source of the timeout. Make sure it has no timeout values set. There are also two commands that will turn timeouts off in most versions of UNIX. They are case-sensitive:

unset TMOUT
unset AUTOLOGOUT

If the user is still logged in on the server when TinyTERM gets disconnected, then a system in between the PC and the server is causing the disconnect. You’ll need a tool such as Ethereal to track down which system is causing the problem.

The other solution is to make sure the connection is never truly idle, that some sort of communication is always happening. A server application such as the Laffey spinner can accomplish this from the host side.

There are also ways to enable this in Windows NT or 2000 and Windows XP. Look for the “KeepAliveTime” option. The Windows solutions require editing the registry.

TinyTERM for Windows 4.8.2 added the telnetkeepalive option to the .tpx file. With this set to a value higher than zero, TinyTERM will wait that many idle seconds, then send a telnet NOP to the host. If set to zero, telnetkeepalive is disabled.

CR 227, telnetkeepalive feature added in TinyTERM 4.8.2

TTML-16

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 am and is filed under Connect. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.