[ovs-discuss] OVSDB connection keep-alive vs. echo RPC

[Matt Layher]

Hi all,

I'm working on implementing an OVSDB client in Go 
(https://godoc.org/github.com/digitalocean/go-openvswitch/ovsdb) and 
recently implemented the Echo RPC.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7047#section-4.1.11

According to the RFC, the purpose of Echo is "to verify the liveness of 
a database connection".  Does this mean that Echo should be used as a 
keep-alive of sorts for long-running connections?  I'm thinking about 
adding a background loop to my client that sends Echo RPCs at a regular 
interval for this purpose.

Next, if I were to connect to ovsdb-server via TCP instead of UNIX 
socket, would enabling TCP keep-alives serve the same purpose?

If neither of these approaches are necessary, it'd avoid adding some 
additional complexity to the code.  I'd be very curious to hear what 
folks have done.

Thanks for your time,

Matt Layher