It is possible that a break in the TCP/IP connection between an OpenEdge Replication server and its agents can go undetected. For example, in a large, complex network with a number of bridges and routers, a segment of the network could go down, interrupting the communications between the server host machine and the agent host machine. However, TCP/IP would still be running in other segments of the network and the server or agent might be unaware of the break.

You can ensure that TCP/IP failures are detected by having the server and agent ping each other. If there is no response to the ping, the connection is assumed to be broken and failure recovery begins.

Use the Repl-Keep-Alive server property to enable pinging between the server and the agent. A ping is sent every thirty seconds. The Repl-Keep-Alive property allows you to specify the number of seconds to wait for a response to the ping. If there is no response for the specified period, a connection failure condition is set and failure recovery begins. The minimum value is 90 seconds; there is no maximum value.

For more information about configuring Repl-Keep-Alive, see Server properties.