[rabbitmq-discuss] Idle TCP Connections to Broker

Fri Apr 20 10:50:48 BST 2012

Paul,

On 17/04/12 23:14, Bell, Paul M. wrote:
> I've heard a "rumor" that the broker will close TCP connections to
> consumers and producers if these connections are idle for some period
> of time.
>
> Can someone confirm the truth of this? If it's true, is this imposed
> by Rabbit, or are we talking about an underlying TCP behavior?

The broker does *not* close idle connections. But some firewalls are 
known to do that.

> At the same time, I heard tell of a way of connecting to the broker
> that allows you to specify a kind of "heartbeat" mode which keeps the
> connection active by periodically sending a heartbeat message to the
> broker. Is there such a connection option?

Yes. Check the documentation for the client library. E.g. in the java 
client the setting is at 
http://www.rabbitmq.com/releases/rabbitmq-java-client/v2.8.1/rabbitmq-java-client-javadoc-2.8.1/com/rabbitmq/client/ConnectionFactory.html#setRequestedHeartbeat(int)

Regards,

Matthias.