Keepalive packets transmitted by default

Keepalive packets transmitted by default

[Gert Mertes]

Hi,

My Windows client (0.4.11) will still sporadically send (and receive) keepalive packets over an idle tunnel, even though PersistentKeepalive is not set in the config of any peer in the tunnel. Explicitly setting it to 0 also has the same result. I’m wondering if (i) the above is expected behaviour and (ii) is it possible to completely disable keepalive packets?

Thanks,
Gert

Re: Keepalive packets transmitted by default

[Aaron Jones]

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On 12/10/2021 13:52, Gert Mertes wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My Windows client (0.4.11) will still sporadically send (and receive)
> keepalive packets over an idle tunnel, even though PersistentKeepalive
> is not set in the config of any peer in the tunnel. Explicitly setting
> it to 0 also has the same result. I’m wondering if (i) the above is
> expected behaviour and (ii) is it possible to completely disable
> keepalive packets?
>
> Thanks,
> Gert

This is the expected behaviour, and it is not possible to disable it.

It's occurring because there is a unidirectional data transfer happening
(e.g. UDP), and the other side is responding with the keepalive because
it hasn't already done so recently (like it would with e.g. a TCP ACK)
and has nothing to send.

The reasons are described in sections 6.2 and 6.5 of the WireGuard
whitepaper.



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