SASEG 5.1 disconnects after 1 hr by the firewall timeout rules. How to avoid disconnect?

[balajib5]

enterWe have SAS Metadata server runs on AIX 6.1 and SAS EG 5.1 32 Bit runs on Citrix server Win 2008 R2. After the idle session of 1 hr, SASEG gets disconnect and because of that SAS work space gets disconnect and output files also getting lost.

Network team told to use TCP Keepalive either on source or destinatio to overcome this issue. We also kept TCP Keepalive in both AIX and Windows regedit but its not sending any packets for every 3 min.

Network team told there is no firewall between the SAS Server and Citrix server and thus causing the issue. I am not very clear what may be the problem.

I found this discussion and it was very usefull. So how we can get rid of idle session disconnect and what we can tell to network team to resolve?

https://communities.sas.com/thread/2632?start=30&tstart=0

Any suggestion?

[SASKiwi]

To be totally clear, SAS and/or EG does not timeout. It is either network port connection rules or firewall rules that are causing the timeout. If it is not obvious what is causing the problem ask your network administrator to run a network analyser on your SAS server's network to find the problem.

In my experience the easiest way to fix this problem is to get the rules changed from a 1 hour timeout to something more reasonable like 8 hours. Where I work the network guys fully understand these issues and are quite happy to make these changes. The good thing about changing the rules is that it fixes the problem permanently for all users.

Running keep-alive software can be messy as it needs to be set up on every SAS/EG client.

[balajib5]

Yes. Its firewall rules causing the timeout on citrix server.

As per security policy they wont increase the TTL value and maximum allowed is 1 hr only.

Do you have any link which will guide to setup Keepalive on the citrix server level or AIX?

Whether the SASEG will use TCP connection and/or SSH connection?

[SASKiwi]

I suspect your network folks are blindly following a policy without realising that making an exception for a particular port for a particular server doesn't compromise network security, as the blanket rule still gets applied everywhere else.

Anyway I hope Jaap's suggestions will work for you. If your SAS version is earlier than 9.3 you may be stuck with separate keep-alive software.

[balajib5]

We are in SAS 9.3M2 and I checked in SMC Properties, we have enabled session keep alive to Yes.

Allow clients to keep service sessions alive

Yes

Will that be impact to SASEG 5.1? or only to Web tier?

[jakarman]

Implement the "session keep alive" setting as  has become available with 9.4

With 9.3 it is parameter at the midtier http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/bimtag/65708/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p0n3toyj2v9j4tn0z4y...

With 9.4 is has become a parameter at the appserver.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/biasag/63854/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n16001intelplatform...

[saikat]

can you please give an example how to use this parameter . i was trying to set in ConnectSpawner.sh but didnt get any output

[SASKiwi]

Adding to an old discussion is not a good idea. You should create a new discussion and create a link to the old one.

What version of SAS are you using? You must be using SAS 9.4 for this to work.

[saikat]

Thanks for your advice , i'll do the same next time. Yes i am using SAS 9.4  

I have set the parameter like below in the ConnectSpawner.sh but didn't see any improvment .

CMD_OPTIONS=" -sspi -objectserverparms "KEEPALIVE=180" $USERMODS_OPTIONS" 

[SASKiwi]

I suggest you confirm that the option is active in your EG session by running PROC OPTIONS and checking the SAS log.

[jakarman]

Read carefully the links the bimtag is for the midtier, that does not include eguide.

With eguide you need a connection to several services keeping open.the 9.4 doc is clear on that. It could also be available at the latest sas 9.3 release I do not know that. With sasaligniofiles and proc ds2 I know it is there altough not dicumented. Ask SAS TS for this as you are knowing now what you have to ask

[hellind]

Is there any option for SAS EG 4.2 user to keep the connection alive?

I don't want to talk to corporate network folks.

[SASKiwi]

What version of SAS are you using with EG 4.2?