Rumba 9.2 / Windows 7 / Keepalive doesn't work

TN3270 sessions time out after 1 hour of inactivity, with or without 'keepalive' being ticked.

 

Have applied the suggested (good old Google) registry mod, still times out. This did fix the problem in XP but now we are Win7 the problem won't go away. 

#Rumba

Hi dzv0ry,

you do not mention which registry keys you changed before to enable Keep Alives, I'm assuming something in the TCPIP parameters.

In my version of RUMBA 9.5 (which is the current release) under the TN3270 Advanced tab of the TN3270 connection configuration dialog there is an option to "Send NOP" under the "Send Keep Alive" option. This should allow you to send Telnet NOP commands to the host at the interval of x seconds (specified in the Interval input box just to the right) and should keep your session connected.

The problem with using TCP Keep Alives is that it only keeps the TCP connection open, so the telnet connection sitting higher up the network stack can still time out.

Unfortunately I don't have 9.2 installed anywhere and as of May 31st 2017 RUMBA 9.2 is in "End of Life" so we are unable to provide support for that version anymore.

My advise would be to see if you have that "Send NOP" option, hopefully you do. If not and regardless you should consider moving to a supported version of Rumba.

Finally, if you are still using pain text TN3270 you should seriously consider moving to TLS 1.2 to ensure the security of your data and user credentials (mainframe username & password) on the wire.

Tom

TN3270 sessions time out after 1 hour of inactivity, with or without 'keepalive' being ticked.

 

Have applied the suggested (good old Google) registry mod, still times out. This did fix the problem in XP but now we are Win7 the problem won't go away. 

#Rumba

Hi dzv0ry,

you do not mention which registry keys you changed before to enable Keep Alives, I'm assuming something in the TCPIP parameters.

In my version of RUMBA 9.5 (which is the current release) under the TN3270 Advanced tab of the TN3270 connection configuration dialog there is an option to "Send NOP" under the "Send Keep Alive" option. This should allow you to send Telnet NOP commands to the host at the interval of x seconds (specified in the Interval input box just to the right) and should keep your session connected.

The problem with using TCP Keep Alives is that it only keeps the TCP connection open, so the telnet connection sitting higher up the network stack can still time out.

Unfortunately I don't have 9.2 installed anywhere and as of May 31st 2017 RUMBA 9.2 is in "End of Life" so we are unable to provide support for that version anymore.

My advise would be to see if you have that "Send NOP" option, hopefully you do. If not and regardless you should consider moving to a supported version of Rumba.

Finally, if you are still using pain text TN3270 you should seriously consider moving to TLS 1.2 to ensure the security of your data and user credentials (mainframe username & password) on the wire.

Tom