THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE APPLIES TO:

• EFT Server v6.2 and later 
• DMZ Gateway v3 and later

QUESTION

How can I change the ping interval between DMZ Gateway and the server?

ANSWER

• The Server always establishes the connection to DMZ Gateway Server through an outbound socket connection.
• DMZ Gateway never establishes connection with the Server.
• The DMZ Gateway routes all client data to the Server over the Server-initiated socket without any translation or modification to the packet’s payload.
• To maintain security in the DMZ, DMZ Gateway Server does no interpretation whatsoever of data; it does not use a store-and-forward architecture, it is purely a forward architecture. If the connection is "plain vanilla" FTP, then it is forwarded as plain vanilla FTP. It is not modified nor inspected between the DMZ Gateway and the Server.
• The Server queries the DMZ Gateway once every 5 minutes. If a reply is not received within 10 seconds, the Server considers the connection lost, severs the current connection, and then attempts to reconnect. The DMZ Gateway also maintains its own awareness (ping/pong) of whether the Server is connected. Periodically, DMZ Gateway determines whether it has received a pong message from the Server since the last ping. If it has, it will ping again; if not, it drops the connection. This allows it to free up ports if EFT Server is not available (no longer responds to ping) and for error reporting.

If there is a device between EFT Server and DMZ Gateway that is terminating idle connections, in version EFT Server v6.2 and later (with DMZ Gateway v3.0), you can edit these settings:

• Changing the DMZ Gateway's Ping Interval—By default, DMZ Gateway will send a PING message to EFT Server every thirty seconds. This value is specified within the gwconfig.xml file that resides in the root DMZ Gateway installation directory. Stopping DMZ Gateway Service prior to making these changes is required. The value (in milliseconds) can be specified at the global level by modifying the configuration value "GlobalPNCKeepalivePeriod". Alternatively, the value can be modified on a per-site basis by specifying a new element named "PNCKeepalivePeriod" within the "Profile" element.
• Changing the EFT Server's Ping Interval—By default, EFT Server sends a PING message to DMZ Gateway every 5 minutes. This value can be overridden by adding a DWORD entry to the Windows Registry. The DWORD value must be named "gw_keepalive" and the value is specified in SECONDS. The location of the key is as follows: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GlobalSCAPE Inc.\EFT Server 4.0\Config]. EFT Server must be restarted in order for this change to take effect.

On a 64-bit OS, the location is [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\GlobalSCAPE Inc.\EFT Server 4.0\Config].

For more information about DMZ Gateway-><-Server communication, refer to "Introduction to DMZ Gateway" in your version of the EFT help or DMZ Gateway help.