Setting The Idle Session Timeout

Setting the Idle Session Timeout

Note	The idle timer will not start if the timeout period is set to zero.

An idle session timeout can be set:

At database level, the database administrator can set the configuration parameter ConnectionIdleTimeout, an integer value in minutes.The default value of zero means no timeout is set.It is configurable per-database, so it may be set globally in firebird.conf and overridden for individual databases in databases.conf as required.

The scope of this method is all user connections, except system connections (garbage collector, cache writer, etc.).
at connection level, the idle session timeout is supported by both the SET SESSION IDLE TIMEOUT statement and the API (setIdleTimeout).The scope of this method is specific to the supplied connection (attachment).Its value in the API is in seconds.In the SQL syntax it can be hours, minutes or seconds.Scope for this method is the connection to which it is applied.

Note	For more information about the API calls, consult theFirebird 4.0 Release Notes.

Determining the Timeout that is In Effect

The effective idle timeout value is determined whenever a user API call leaves the engine, checking first at connection level and then at database level.A connection-level timeout can override the value of a database-level setting, as long as the period of time for the connection-level setting is no longer than any non-zero timeout that is applicable at database level.

Important

Take note of the difference between the time units at each level.At database level, in the configuration files, the unit for SessionTimeout is minutes.In SQL, the default unit is minutes but can also be expressed in hours or seconds explicitly.At the API level, the unit is seconds.

Absolute precision is not guaranteed in any case, especially when the system load is high, but timeouts are guaranteed not to expire earlier than the moment specified.