INACTIVE, PRTINACTIVE, PROFILEINACTIVE, and KEEPINACTIVE all share one timer associated with a port profile to reduce system overhead. The timer with the smallest value defined in TELNETGLOBALS, TELNETPARMS, or PARMSGROUP for that port profile is used to define how often the connections are checked.
For example, assume KEEPINACTIVE is defined as 1800, PROFILEINACTIVE is 1800 by default, INACTIVE is defined as 3000, and PRTINACTIVE is defined as 5400 in a profile. The Telnet timer will run every 1800 seconds. Therefore, every time the timer expires, Telnet will check each KEEPOPEN connection not in session to see if there has been a SNA session created in the prior 1800 seconds. If not, the connection is dropped with DEBUG SUMMARY message CONN DROP reason INACT-K. For PROFILEINACTIVE, Telnet checks each connection associated with a profile that is not current to determine whether a SNA session existed in the previous 1800 seconds. If not, the connection is dropped with DEBUG SUMMARY message CONN DROP reason INACT-PF. Telnet will also check each terminal connection to see if there has been any SNA data traffic in the prior 3000 seconds. If not, the connection is dropped with DEBUG SUMMARY message CONN DROP reason INACT-S. Telnet also will check each printer connection to see if there has been any SNA data traffic in the prior 5400 seconds. If not, the connection is dropped with DEBUG SUMMARY message CONN DROP reason INACT-P.
Setting KEEPOPEN to the smallest time was done as an example. Any of the four timers could be the smallest. Also, because all inactivity checks are done by one timer, a connection check could occur just before the connection would be considered timed out. The connection will remain active until the next check is made.
Using the example above, if a terminal connection has had no SNA activity in the past 2999 seconds when a check is made, the connection is not dropped. Another check is done 1800 seconds later and the connection is dropped, but the connection will have remained active for 4799 seconds instead of the specified 3000 seconds.