VPN timeout issues

[pinion9]

Can someone tell me if there is a minumum amount of data transfer across a VPN in order for it to keep alive? For example, will the VPN only keep alive if it has X number of packets received in a time period, does it see all data as keep alive, or is it variable based upon configuration?

 

[cross6]

You can set the time out via configuration. What kind of hardware?

 

[pinion9]

I'm not sure of the hardware. I know it is a Cisco VPN. I don't work in the IT department per se. My question is essentially, what counts as a keep alive? If I send ICMP echo, does it count as a keep alive signal? Or does it only keep alive if say, 1KB of data is transferred over a given amount of time. Our timeout is currently set to 2 hours, but it keeps timing out despite one application running a query every minute to check for new content on a server. Is this query enough to keep the connection alive or is it configurable to ignore data as a keep alive if it is a small amount of packets (e.g. don't keep alive for ICMP echo traffic)