FileZilla Forums

Hi,

Are there any plans to change the FileZilla data connection timeout from 60 seconds?
Waiting for the SFTP connection to re-establish every 3-4 mins intervals is hard going as I do this all through the day (ie 10 hours).

Apart from the inconvenience, isn't it arguably less secure sending credentials every few mins, than just leaving the connection open?
Or is there a specific reason you have this timeout?

Cheers

James
You can set your own timeout length in seconds in Edit / Settings / Timeout -- right there at the 2nd box from top.

BarryG

Already have that to 0. Timeout still occurs after 60 seconds.

boco wrote: data connections are used for the actual transfers and disconnect 60 seconds after transfers have finished. So if your next transfer is not within 60 seconds the data connection has to be reestablished. That's simply how it works, the data connections timeout can not be changed.

Quote Post

This does not happen in other clients. Tested in gFTP and I can come back to the open connection 10+mins after and all connections are still live. Uploading a file is instant.

FileZilla is not other clients.

botg wrote:FileZilla is not other clients.

Hmm. I hadn't noticed, but after some evaluation, I see your point...Schoolboy error on my part...

I just meant that as gFTP had no timeout it shows it's likely the setting in Filezilla, and there are no issues with, eg, firewall, router, remote server, etc.
Wasn't comparing. The whole point of me being here discussing it is I prefer Filezilla, otherwise, I'd have just used gFTP

Are there any plans to change the FileZilla data connection timeout from 60 seconds? Even 5 mins would be a huge advantage.
I presume there is a specific reason for the 60 seconds.

Cheers

One minute is a nice round number. Also I think it's neither too short nor too long.

How long does reconnecting take in your situation?

Apart from the inconvenience, isn't it arguably less secure sending credentials every few mins, than just leaving the connection open?

Arguably, if the handshake employs Perfect Forward Secrecy, making new connections can be more secure than reusing the same connection for a long time.

A reconnect once a minute is harmless from a security standpoint.

botg wrote:How long does reconnecting take in your situation?

10 to 15 seconds, but it's annoying as the frequency is every 2 to 5 mins on average.
When one has a vast amount of things going on at any one time, completely halting workflow to stare at the screen 15 or 20 times an hour is annoying (I can have half a class written in that time )

botg wrote:Arguably, if the handshake employs Perfect Forward Secrecy, making new connections can be more secure than reusing the same connection for a long time.

Fair point. I suppose if it is secure then doesn't matter what you do.
I believe someone once said something about nuclear launch codes on one's desktop...


10 mins would be perfect, and not just for me, I think that's logical regardless of one's specific scenario.
Waiting 10+ secs every 2 to 10 mins is frequent and as such annoying. Whereas a frequency above 10 mins is (relatively) less annoying (considering one has to draw a line somewhere).

I see a lot of people attempt to troubleshoot (and complain) about it around the net. So maybe it would be worthwhile, in as much as it will relieve a lot of users (there's a dirty joke about handshake somewhere there..)
Or, of course, default to whatever and allow users to specify.

Other than that, fantastic piece of software, especially as you support all OSs.

James2014 wrote:10 to 15 seconds, but it's annoying as the frequency is every 2 to 5 mins on average.

Whoah, that's long. What's your round-trip latency to the server?

Average RTT is 20ms pinging 20 X 1kB packets.
traceroute showed 11 hops (Layer3 hops only, of course)
Same RTT with standard 56B packets.

That's strange. Even over a slow transatlantic connection I can connect to SFTP servers in about 2 seconds. With your latencies you shouldn't need more than a second to connect.

It looks like a server problem, with the server for some reason introducing several seconds of delay before continuing to connect.

Thanks for the info.

I already poked my provider (who are pretty good). I'll re-poke them.

Any other possibilities to consider my end?
I'm on FileZilla 3.5.3, Debian 7.4 AMD64


EDIT:
When FZ drops the data connection after 60 seconds, does FZ need to re-establish login with the SSH (SFTP) server again?
i.e. in the same way initial login occurs? Or does FileZilla remain "logged in" and just needs to re-establish the data connection (which does not require login credentials etc)?

Full login and handshake is performed. Transfer connections are independent.

Thanks boco, that explains it for me.
It takes 10 seconds on average to log in to the shell system on my hosting. (They have plans to improve it)

botg - How much beer would you want to change the 60 seconds in FZ?

Thanks both. I wasn't aware it was full login following data connection timeout.

If there was a setting to raise the timeout for data connections, I'd definitely use it for slow servers (should be Site Manager setting).