COAP_KEEPALIVE(3)

NAME
coap_keepalive, coap_context_set_keepalive - Work with CoAP keepalive

SYNOPSIS

#include <coap3/coap.h>

void coap_context_set_keepalive(coap_context_t *context, unsigned int seconds);

For specific (D)TLS library support, link with -lcoap-3-notls, -lcoap-3-gnutls, -lcoap-3-openssl, -lcoap-3-mbedtls, -lcoap-3-wolfssl or -lcoap-3-tinydtls. Otherwise, link with -lcoap-3 to get the default (D)TLS library support.

DESCRIPTION

There may be a requirement to send out keepalive traffic when the CoAP session is idle (no packets have been sent or received for a specified period) to keep, say, an interim NAT device "warm" with the NAT translation state, or to periodically check whether the device at the other end of the session has "gone away".

For UDP/DTLS, this is done with the confirmable CoAP (0.00) Ping packet, which solicits a CoAP RST response. For TCP/TLS, this is done with CoAP (7.02) Ping packet, which solicits a CoAP (7.03) Pong response, all handled by libcoap.

FUNCTIONS

Function: coap_context_set_keepalive()

The coap_context_set_keepalive() function needs to be called to update the context with the keepalive for idle traffic timeout of seconds. If seconds is set to 0 (the default), then the sending of keepalives is disabled. Any sessions created from this context will use the same seconds value to determine whether a keepalive "ping" is to be sent out or not.

Applications can track the usage of the receipt of "pings" and receipt of "responses" by defining the respective handlers to use by using coap_register_ping_handler() and coap_register_pong_handler().

If the keepalive fails to solicit a response, then this can be tracked by defining the handler to use by using coap_register_event_handler() which will be called with a reason of COAP_EVENT_KEEPALIVE_FAILURE.

NOTE: As this may be used to keep an interim NAT device "warm", the exponentially increasing retransmit times for CON requests is limited to seconds, but the retransmit counter is not affected. Unless needed, seconds shold not be set to less than 30.

SEE ALSO

coap_handler(3)

FURTHER INFORMATION

See

"RFC7252: The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)"

"RFC8323: CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) over TCP, TLS, and WebSockets"

for further information.

BUGS

Please raise an issue on GitHub at https://github.com/obgm/libcoap/issues to report any bugs.

Please raise a Pull Request at https://github.com/obgm/libcoap/pulls for any fixes.

AUTHORS

The libcoap project <libcoap-developers@lists.sourceforge.net>