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TCP Keepalive HOWTO
Fabio Busatto
<fabio.busatto@sikurezza.org>
2007-05-04
Revision History
Revision 1.0 2007-05-04 Revised by: FB
First release, reviewed by TM.
This document describes the TCP keepalive implementation in the linux
kernel, introduces the overall concept and points to both system
configuration and software development.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Copyright and License
1.2. Disclaimer
1.3. Credits / Contributors
1.4. Feedback
1.5. Translations
2. TCP keepalive overview
2.1. What is TCP keepalive?
2.2. Why use TCP keepalive?
2.3. Checking for dead peers
2.4. Preventing disconnection due to network inactivity
3. Using TCP keepalive under Linux
3.1. Configuring the kernel
3.2. Making changes persistent to reboot
4. Programming applications
4.1. When your code needs keepalive support
4.2. The setsockopt function call
4.3. Code examples
5. Adding support to third-party software
5.1. Modifying source code
5.2. libkeepalive: library preloading
1. Introduction
Understanding TCP keepalive is not necessary in most cases, but it's a
subject that can be very useful under particular circumstances. You will need
to know basic TCP/IP networking concepts, and the C programming language to
understand all sections of this document.
The main purpose of this HOWTO is to describe TCP keepalive in detail and
demonstrate various application situations. After some initial theory, the
discussion focuses on the Linux implementation of TCP keepalive routines in
the modern Linux kernel releases (2.4.x, 2.6.x), and how system
administrators can take advantage of these routines, with specific
configuration examples and tricks.
The second part of the HOWTO involves the programming interface exposed by
the Linux kernel, and how to write TCP keepalive-enabled applications in the
C language. Pratical examples are presented, and there is an introduction to
the libkeepalive project, which permits legacy applications to benefit from
keepalive with no code modification.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.1. Copyright and License
This document, TCP Keepalive HOWTO, is copyrighted (c) 2007 by Fabio
Busatto. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is available at [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html]
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.
Source code included in this document is released under the terms of the
GNU General Public License, Version 2 or any later version published by the
Free Software Foundation. A copy of the license is available at [http://
www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2. Disclaimer
No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use the
concepts, examples and information at your own risk. There may be errors and
inaccuracies that could be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, and
although this is highly unlikely, the author does not take any
responsibility.
All copyrights are held by their by their respective owners, unless
specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be
regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Naming
of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.3. Credits / Contributors
This work is not especially related to any people that I should thank. But
my life is, and my knowledge too: so, thanks to everyone that has supported
me, prior to my birth, now, and in the future. Really.
A special thank is due to Tabatha, the patient woman that read my work and
made the needed reviews.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4. Feedback
Feedback is most certainly welcome for this document. Send your additions,
comments and criticisms to the following email address: <
fabio.busatto@sikurezza.org>.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5. Translations
There are no translated versions of this HOWTO at the time of publication.
If you are interested in translating this HOWTO into other languages, please
feel free to contact me. Your contribution will be very welcome.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. TCP keepalive overview
In order to understand what TCP keepalive (which we will just call
keepalive) does, you need do nothing more than read the name: keep TCP alive.
This means that you will be able to check your connected socket (also known
as TCP sockets), and determine whether the connection is still up and running
or if it has broken.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1. What is TCP keepalive?
The keepalive concept is very simple: when you set up a TCP connection, you
associate a set of timers. Some of these timers deal with the keepalive
procedure. When the keepalive timer reaches zero, you send your peer a
keepalive probe packet with no data in it and the ACK flag turned on. You can
do this because of the TCP/IP specifications, as a sort of duplicate ACK, and
the remote endpoint will have no arguments, as TCP is a stream-oriented
protocol. On the other hand, you will receive a reply from the remote host
(which doesn't need to support keepalive at all, just TCP/IP), with no data
and the ACK set.
If you receive a reply to your keepalive probe, you can assert that the
connection is still up and running without worrying about the user-level
implementation. In fact, TCP permits you to handle a stream, not packets, and
so a zero-length data packet is not dangerous for the user program.
This procedure is useful because if the other peers lose their connection
(for example by rebooting) you will notice that the connection is broken,
even if you don't have traffic on it. If the keepalive probes are not replied
to by your peer, you can assert that the connection cannot be considered
valid and then take the correct action.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2. Why use TCP keepalive?
You can live quite happily without keepalive, so if you're reading this,
you may be trying to understand if keepalive is a possible solution for your
problems. Either that or you've really got nothing more interesting to do
instead, and that's okay too. :)
Keepalive is non-invasive, and in most cases, if you're in doubt, you can
turn it on without the risk of doing something wrong. But do remember that it
generates extra network traffic, which can have an impact on routers and
firewalls.
In short, use your brain and be careful.
In the next section we will distinguish between the two target tasks for
keepalive:
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>Checking for dead peers
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>Preventing disconnection due to network inactivity
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.3. Checking for dead peers
Keepalive can be used to advise you when your peer dies before it is able
to notify you. This could happen for several reasons, like kernel panic or a
brutal termination of the process handling that peer. Another scenario that
illustrates when you need keepalive to detect peer death is when the peer is
still alive but the network channel between it and you has gone down. In this
scenario, if the network doesn't become operational again, you have the
equivalent of peer death. This is one of those situations where normal TCP
operations aren't useful to check the connection status.
Think of a simple TCP connection between Peer A and Peer B: there is the
initial three-way handshake, with one SYN segment from A to B, the SYN/ACK
back from B to A, and the final ACK from A to B. At this time, we're in a
stable status: connection is established, and now we would normally wait for
someone to send data over the channel. And here comes the problem: unplug the
power supply from B and instantaneously it will go down, without sending
anything over the network to notify A that the connection is going to be
broken. A, from its side, is ready to receive data, and has no idea that B
has crashed. Now restore the power supply to B and wait for the system to
restart. A and B are now back again, but while A knows about a connection
still active with B, B has no idea. The situation resolves itself when A
tries to send data to B over the dead connection, and B replies with an RST
packet, causing A to finally to close the connection.
Keepalive can tell you when another peer becomes unreachable without the
risk of false-positives. In fact, if the problem is in the network between
two peers, the keepalive action is to wait some time and then retry, sending
the keepalive packet before marking the connection as broken.
_____ _____
| | | |
| A | | B |
|_____| |_____|
^ ^
|--->--->--->-------------- SYN -------------->--->--->---|
|---<---<---<------------ SYN/ACK ------------<---<---<---|
|--->--->--->-------------- ACK -------------->--->--->---|
| |
| system crash ---> X
|
| system restart ---> ^
| |
|--->--->--->-------------- PSH -------------->--->--->---|
|---<---<---<-------------- RST --------------<---<---<---|
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.4. Preventing disconnection due to network inactivity
The other useful goal of keepalive is to prevent inactivity from
disconnecting the channel. It's a very common issue, when you are behind a
NAT proxy or a firewall, to be disconnected without a reason. This behavior
is caused by the connection tracking procedures implemented in proxies and
firewalls, which keep track of all connections that pass through them.
Because of the physical limits of these machines, they can only keep a finite
number of connections in their memory. The most common and logical policy is
to keep newest connections and to discard old and inactive connections first.
Returning to Peers A and B, reconnect them. Once the channel is open, wait
until an event occurs and then communicate this to the other peer. What if
the event verifies after a long period of time? Our connection has its scope,
but it's unknown to the proxy. So when we finally send data, the proxy isn't
able to correctly handle it, and the connection breaks up.
Because the normal implementation puts the connection at the top of the
list when one of its packets arrives and selects the last connection in the
queue when it needs to eliminate an entry, periodically sending packets over
the network is a good way to always be in a polar position with a minor risk
of deletion.
_____ _____ _____
| | | | | |
| A | | NAT | | B |
|_____| |_____| |_____|
^ ^ ^
|--->--->--->---|----------- SYN ------------->--->--->---|
|---<---<---<---|--------- SYN/ACK -----------<---<---<---|
|--->--->--->---|----------- ACK ------------->--->--->---|
| | |
| | <--- connection deleted from table |
| | |
|--->- PSH ->---| <--- invalid connection |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Using TCP keepalive under Linux
Linux has built-in support for keepalive. You need to enable TCP/IP
networking in order to use it. You also need procfs support and sysctl
support to be able to configure the kernel parameters at runtime.
The procedures involving keepalive use three user-driven variables:
tcp_keepalive_time
the interval between the last data packet sent (simple ACKs are not
considered data) and the first keepalive probe; after the connection is
marked to need keepalive, this counter is not used any further
tcp_keepalive_intvl
the interval between subsequential keepalive probes, regardless of what
the connection has exchanged in the meantime
tcp_keepalive_probes
the number of unacknowledged probes to send before considering the
connection dead and notifying the application layer
Remember that keepalive support, even if configured in the kernel, is not
the default behavior in Linux. Programs must request keepalive control for
their sockets using the setsockopt interface. There are relatively few
programs implementing keepalive, but you can easily add keepalive support for
most of them following the instructions explained later in this document.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1. Configuring the kernel
There are two ways to configure keepalive parameters inside the kernel via
userspace commands:
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>procfs interface
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>sysctl interface
We mainly discuss how this is accomplished on the procfs interface because
it's the most used, recommended and the easiest to understand. The sysctl
interface, particularly regarding the sysctl(2) syscall and not the
sysctl(8) tool, is only here for the purpose of background knowledge.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1.1. The procfs interface
This interface requires both sysctl and procfs to be built into the
kernel, and procfs mounted somewhere in the filesystem (usually on /proc,
as in the examples below). You can read the values for the actual parameters
by "catting" files in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ directory:
# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_time
7200
# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_intvl
75
# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_probes
9
The first two parameters are expressed in seconds, and the last is the pure
number. This means that the keepalive routines wait for two hours (7200 secs)
before sending the first keepalive probe, and then resend it every 75
seconds. If no ACK response is received for nine consecutive times, the
connection is marked as broken.
Modifying this value is straightforward: you need to write new values into
the files. Suppose you decide to configure the host so that keepalive starts
after ten minutes of channel inactivity, and then send probes in intervals of
one minute. Because of the high instability of our network trunk and the low
value of the interval, suppose you also want to increase the number of probes
to 20.
Here's how we would change the settings:
# echo 600 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_time
# echo 60 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_intvl
# echo 20 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_keepalive_probes
To be sure that all succeeds, recheck the files and confirm these new
values are showing in place of the old ones.
Remember that procfs handles special files, and you cannot perform any sort
of operation on them because they're just an interface within the kernel
space, not real files, so try your scripts before using them, and try to use
simple access methods as in the examples shown earlier.
You can access the interface through the sysctl(8) tool, specifying what
you want to read or write.
# sysctl \
> net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time \
> net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl \
> net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time = 7200
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl = 75
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes = 9
Note that sysctl names are very close to procfs paths. Write is performed
using the -w switch of sysctl (8):
# sysctl -w \
> net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time=600 \
> net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl=60 \
> net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes=20
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time = 600
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl = 60
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes = 20
Note that sysctl (8) doesn't use sysctl(2) syscall, but reads and writes
directly in the procfs subtree, so you will need procfs enabled in the kernel
and mounted in the filesystem, just as you would if you directly accessed the
files within the procfs interface. Sysctl(8) is just a different way to do
the same thing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1.2. The sysctl interface
There is another way to access kernel variables: sysctl(2 ) syscall. It can
be useful when you don't have procfs available because the communication with
the kernel is performed directly via syscall and not through the procfs
subtree. There is currently no program that wraps this syscall (remember that
sysctl(8) doesn't use it).
For more details about using sysctl(2) refer to the manpage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.2. Making changes persistent to reboot
There are several ways to reconfigure your system every time it boots up.
First, remember that every Linux distribution has its own set of init scripts
called by init (8). The most common configurations include the /etc/rc.d/
directory, or the alternative, /etc/init.d/. In any case, you can set the
parameters in any of the startup scripts, because keepalive rereads the
values every time its procedures need them. So if you change the value of
tcp_keepalive_intvl when the connection is still up, the kernel will use the
new value going forward.
There are three spots where the initialization commands should logically be
placed: the first is where your network is configured, the second is the
rc.local script, usually included in all distributions, which is known as the
place where user configuration setups are done. The third place may already
exist in your system. Referring back to the sysctl (8) tool, you can see that
the -p switch loads settings from the /etc/sysctl.conf configuration file.
In many cases your init script already performs the sysctl -p (you can "grep"
it in the configuration directory for confirmation), and so you just have to
add the lines in /etc/sysctl.conf to make them load at every boot. For more
information about the syntax of sysctl.conf(5), refer to the manpage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Programming applications
This section deals with programming code needed if you want to create
applications that use keepalive. This is not a programming manual, and it
requires that you have previous knowledge in C programming and in networking
concepts. I consider you familiar with sockets, and with everything
concerning the general aspects of your application.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.1. When your code needs keepalive support
Not all network applications need keepalive support. Remember that it is
TCP keepalive support. So, as you can imagine, only TCP sockets can take
advantage of it.
The most beautiful thing you can do when writing an application is to make
it as customizable as possible, and not to force decisions. If you want to
consider the happiness of your users, you should implement keepalive and let
the users decide if they want to use it or not by using a configuration
parameter or a switch on the command line.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2. The setsockopt function call
All you need to enable keepalive for a specific socket is to set the
specific socket option on the socket itself. The prototype of the function is
as follows:
int setsockopt(int s, int level, int optname,
const void *optval, socklen_t optlen)
The first parameter is the socket, previously created with the socket(2);
the second one must be SOL_SOCKET, and the third must be SO_KEEPALIVE . The
fourth parameter must be a boolean integer value, indicating that we want to
enable the option, while the last is the size of the value passed before.
According to the manpage, 0 is returned upon success, and -1 is returned on
error (and errno is properly set).
There are also three other socket options you can set for keepalive when
you write your application. They all use the SOL_TCP level instead of
SOL_SOCKET, and they override system-wide variables only for the current
socket. If you read without writing first, the current system-wide parameters
will be returned.
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>TCP_KEEPCNT: overrides tcp_keepalive_probes
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>TCP_KEEPIDLE: overrides tcp_keepalive_time
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>TCP_KEEPINTVL: overrides tcp_keepalive_intvl
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3. Code examples
This is a little example that creates a socket, shows that keepalive is
disabled, then enables it and checks that the option was effectively set.
/* --- begin of keepalive test program --- */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
int main(void);
int main()
{
int s;
int optval;
socklen_t optlen = sizeof(optval);
/* Create the socket */
if((s = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP)) < 0) {
perror("socket()");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Check the status for the keepalive option */
if(getsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, &optval, &optlen) < 0) {
perror("getsockopt()");
close(s);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("SO_KEEPALIVE is %s\n", (optval ? "ON" : "OFF"));
/* Set the option active */
optval = 1;
optlen = sizeof(optval);
if(setsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, &optval, optlen) < 0) {
perror("setsockopt()");
close(s);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("SO_KEEPALIVE set on socket\n");
/* Check the status again */
if(getsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, &optval, &optlen) < 0) {
perror("getsockopt()");
close(s);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("SO_KEEPALIVE is %s\n", (optval ? "ON" : "OFF"));
close(s);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
/* --- end of keepalive test program --- */
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Adding support to third-party software
Not everyone is a software developer, and not everyone will rewrite
software from scratch if it lacks just one feature. Maybe you want to add
keepalive support to an existing application because, though the author might
not have thought it important, you think it will be useful.
First, remember what was said about the situations where you need
keepalive. Now you'll need to address connection-oriented TCP sockets.
Since Linux doesn't provide the functionality to enable keepalive support
via the kernel itself (as BSD-like operating systems often do), the only way
is to perform the setsockopt (2) call after socket creation. There are two
solutions:
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>source code modification of the original program
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD>*<2A>setsockopt (2) injection using the library preloading technique
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.1. Modifying source code
Remember that keepalive is not program-related, but socket-related, so if
you have multiple sockets, you can handle keepalive for each of them
separately. The first phase is to understand what the program does and then
search the code for each socket in the program. This can be done using grep
(1), as follows:
# grep 'socket *(' *.c
This will more or less show you all sockets in the code. The next step is
to select only the right ones: you will need TCP sockets, so look for PF_INET
(or AF_INET), SOCK_STREAM and IPPROTO_TCP (or more commonly, 0) in the
parameters of your socket list, and remove the non-matching ones.
Another way to create a socket is through accept(2). In this case, follow
the TCP sockets identified and check if any of these is a listening socket:
if positive, keep in mind that accept(2) returns a socket descriptor, which
must be inserted in your socket list.
Once you've identified the sockets you can proceed with changes. The most
fast & furious patch can be done by simply adding the setsockopt(2 ) function
just after the socket creation block. Optionally, you may include additional
calls in order to set the keepalive parameters if you don't like the system
defaults. Please be careful when implementing error checks and handlers for
the function, maybe by copying the style from the original code around it.
Remember to set the optval to a non-zero value and to initialize the optlen
before invoking the function.
If you have time or you think it would be really cool, try to add complete
keepalive support to your program, including a switch on the command line or
a configuration parameter to let the user choose whether or not to use
keepalive.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2. libkeepalive: library preloading
There are often cases where you don't have the ability to modify the source
code of an application, or when you have to enable keepalive for all your
programs, so patching and recompiling everything is not recommended.
The libkeepalive project was born to help add keepalive support for
applications since the Linux kernel doesn't provide the ability to do the
same thing natively (like BSD does). The libkeepalive project homepage is
[http://libkeepalive.sourceforge.net/] http://libkeepalive.sourceforge.net/
It consists of a shared library that overrides the socket system call in
most binaries, without the need to recompile or modify them. The technique is
based on the preloading feature of the ld.so(8) loader included in Linux,
which allows you to force the loading of shared libraries with higher
priority than normal. Programs usually use the socket(2) function call
located in the glibc shared library; with libkeepalive you can wrap it and
inject the setsockopt (2) just after the socket creation, returning a socket
with keepalive already set to the main program. Because of the mechanisms
used to inject the system call, this doesn't work when the socket function is
statically compiled into the binary, as in a program linked with the gcc(1 )
flag -static.
After downloading and installing libkeepalive, you will able to add
keepalive support to your programs without the prerequisite of being root,
simply setting the LD_PRELOAD environment variable before executing the
program. By the way, the superuser can also force the preloading with a
global configuration, and the users can then decide to turn it off by setting
the KEEPALIVE environment variable to off.
The environment is also used to set specific values for keepalive
parameters, so you have the ability to handle each program differently,
setting KEEPCNT, KEEPIDLE and KEEPINTVL before starting the application.
Here's an example of libkeepalive usage:
$ test
SO_KEEPALIVE is OFF
$ LD_PRELOAD=libkeepalive.so \
> KEEPCNT=20 \
> KEEPIDLE=180 \
> KEEPINTVL=60 \
> test
SO_KEEPALIVE is ON
TCP_KEEPCNT = 20
TCP_KEEPIDLE = 180
TCP_KEEPINTVL = 60
And you can use strace (1) to understand what happens:
$ strace test
execve("test", ["test"], [/* 26 vars */]) = 0
[..]
open("/lib/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = 3
[..]
socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP) = 3
getsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, [0], [4]) = 0
close(3) = 0
[..]
_exit(0) = ?
$ LD_PRELOAD=libkeepalive.so \
> strace test
execve("test", ["test"], [/* 27 vars */]) = 0
[..]
open("/usr/local/lib/libkeepalive.so", O_RDONLY) = 3
[..]
open("/lib/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = 3
[..]
open("/lib/libdl.so.2", O_RDONLY) = 3
[..]
socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP) = 3
setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, [1], 4) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_KEEPCNT, [20], 4) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_KEEPIDLE, [180], 4) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_KEEPINTVL, [60], 4) = 0
[..]
getsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, [1], [4]) = 0
[..]
getsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_KEEPCNT, [20], [4]) = 0
[..]
getsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_KEEPIDLE, [180], [4]) = 0
[..]
getsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_KEEPINTVL, [60], [4]) = 0
[..]
close(3) = 0
[..]
_exit(0) = ?
For more information, visit the libkeepalive project homepage: [http://
libkeepalive.sourceforge.net/] http://libkeepalive.sourceforge.net/
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