Re: statement regarding keepalives

[Joe Touch]

On Aug 16, 2018, at 3:10 PM, Benjamin Kaduk <ka...@mit.edu> wrote:

>> Keepalives at a layer SHOULD NOT be interpreted as implying state at
>> any other layer.
> 
> What's going on here in the last sentence is probably a bit subtle -- a
> keeaplive both does not indicate "real" protocol activity but also can
> serve to exercise the lower protocol layers (and, even, per the previous
> sentence, suppresses their keepalives).

That may be intended but is never actually known. Lower layers can compress, 
cache, merge, and otherwise change the effect a transmission st one layer has 
on any other. 

Protocols should avoid trying to do this. 

Joe