Why do Windows sockets break after exactly 4 minutes?

[Geoffrey Talvola]

Erno Kuusela wrote:
> In article <mailman.1016754947.17945.python-list at python.org>, Geoffrey
> Talvola <gtalvola at nameconnector.com> writes:
> 
> | I've noticed that Windows sockets seem to close all by 
> themselves if there
> | is no activity for 4 minutes.  Does anyone know why?  Is it 
> possible to
> | control this behavior?  Just a link to some documentation 
> of this behavior
> | would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> usually when this happens, it means there is some sort of "stateful
> firewall" [sic] or NAT box in the way. if you can find out where
> it is and who controls it, it may be possible to alleviate the problem
> by increasing the timeout setting. or you can add some sort of
> periodical dummy message into your protocol to refresh the memory
> of the interloper box.

I doubt that's the case here.  I'm connecting to a socket on the same
machine (using "localhost").

- Geoff