Does a TCP socket connection have a “keep alive”?

Question

I have heard of HTTP keep-alive but for now I want to open a socket connection with a remote server.
Now will this socket connection remain open forever or is there a timeout limit associated with it similar to HTTP keep-alive?

Answer 1

Here is some supplemental literature on keepalive which explains it in much finer detail.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/TCP-Keepalive-HOWTO

Since Java does not allow you to control the actual keepalive times, you can use the examples to change them if you're using a Linux kernel (or proc based OS).

Answer 2

For Windows according to Microsoft docs

• KeepAliveTime (REG_DWORD, milliseconds, by default is not set which means 7,200,000,000 = 2 hours) - analogue to tcp_keepalive_time
• KeepAliveInterval (REG_DWORD, milliseconds, by default is not set which means 1,000 = 1 second) - analogue to tcp_keepalive_intvl
• Since Windows Vista there is no analogue to tcp_keepalive_probes, value is fixed to 10 and cannot be changed