[Tinymux] Seeking Networking Advice

[T SS]

>The problem I have is this:
>
>Everyone who connects to the games hosted on my machine has to set 
>themselves keepalive--or otherwise run some kind of timer--in order to 
>avoid their connection being dropped. I don't know if it is a problem with 
>the cable modem,

     Understand that this is purely guess work and hypothesis. But, I 
started having this problem (of the idle flag on a wiz-alt not working 
correctly), when my local ISP started enforcing their DHCP server's dynamic 
IP address allocation every 6 hours. Even when the actual IP address didn't 
change, it usually dumped  telnet/scp connections, to MU*s and shells.

     While this is for a DSL modem, not a cable modem, I suspect it's the 
same problem. And, I suspect that it results from them either not preserving 
connections during a scheduled IP address change or not preserving 
low-priority connections. Which, as your average "internet" user spends the 
majority of their time web browsing and maybe emailing or IM'ing, includes 
telnet connections. And so 98% of the ISP's market base is never going to 
notice a problem. Or have a complaint.

     Again, this is a completely non-scientific guess, based on personal 
experiences and observed dynamics. But...you're probably stuck having them 
set a timer. In my area, at least, the problem has reduced in frequency 
lately, if not been entirely eliminated. And since nothing changed on my 
end, I can only assume it's the result of random DHCP server upgrades.

K.