In article <[log in to unmask]>,
  "John W. Nesbitt" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> We are running host-based telnet on our 987/150SX, running 5.5, patch level
> 2.  I have inetd running in a job in the CS queue (ie. same priority as
> sessions).  Most telnet users have Reflection.  I am getting reports
> (complaints) of sessions 'hanging': the keyboard freezes and nothing can
> reset the session short of aborting it.
>
> Are other folks running into this class of problem?
>

I have been investigating this problem for the last 4 months.

I have seen this problem even on the most current patches applied to the HP.
I wrote a telnet client to help diagnose the problem, and when these "hanging
sessions" occur, the HP's telnet implementation won't even respond to an "Are
You There" sequence embedded in a Telnet Synch packet.  Under normal
circumstances, the HP would respond with the string "YES".

These hanging sessions usually occur after a TCP retransmit within the
session.  Sniffer traces show that TCP recovers properly, but the session is
in its frozen state.

Wanna test it for yourself?  :-)

An easy way to generate this behavior on your systems is to tie up the
network, to force the TCP retransmits.  I use a Ping-Flood against the
closest router on route to the HP.  Then, do some interactive command
interpreter stuff.  The more bi-directional, the better.  We used a
Reflections script to automate this.

All of the above leads me to conclude that there is a problem with the HP
software.  I suspect it's in the socket implementation or in the telnet
server implementation -- since a Telnet AYT packet doesn't even get processed
by the HP.

I would be interested in talking with an HP representative about this, but to
date neither I (nor my affected clients) have not been able to get an HP
resource to discuss this.

If anyone wants to discuss this further, feel free to drop me an email (lalee
at pobox dot com).

Laurence A. Lee
Software Engineer

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