On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 10:49 AM, Glenn Eychaner <geychaner at mac.com> wrote: > > 2) Protocol change: The server never writes to the socket in the existing > protocol, and can therefore never find out that the connection is dead. > Writing to the socket would reveal this. But what happens if the server writes > to the socket, and the client never reads? (We do, as it happens, have access > to the client software, so the protocol can be fixed eventually. But I'm still > curious as to the answer.) If you can change the client, and you want to keep essentially re-using the same socket after a reboot, can't you simply send a RST on it when starting up and then re-connect- or even run a different program ahead starting that just sends a RST with that source/dest/port combination? That should make the server side abandon that connection and accept another, although you may still need to play tricks on the server side to avoid TIME_WAIT. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com