Greywolf writes:
> 
> "Why should I have to do this!?"

Perhaps because your are mixing your timeouts?  You're telling a "physical"
device to drop if it is idle for more than 150 seconds, yet the protocol
you're running over it, doesn't timeout for (I believe) 14400 seconds.
Unless you are guaranteed to get the same ip address when you dialup again,
your open sockets are worthless, and should be closed.

> I don't want to do this because I want it to drop the connection when the
> sup is done. If it finishes sometime after I've gone to bed but before I
> wake up (hopefully), that's wasted time.

Perhaps you should do "sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.keepidle=150", so that any
socket that is idle for more than 2.5 minutes, is forced to do a keepalive.
Actually I guess you want a number below 2.5 minutes, if you want the
keepalive to hold your modem link up.  Then, all sockets need to shutdown
before your physical link can drop.

> This "CVS likes to think about things" is bull<bleep>!

Perhaps so, but do expect an instantaneous response from a freely
provide service, is a bit much.  Admittedly I find it disgusting that
my modem will be completely idle for extended periods.  (over 15 minutes)
But, this is the nature of the game.  Either use something better, (rsync?)
or workaround it locally. (keepalives?)

> "Why can't the CVS server do a ping now and again itself?"

This would be a keepalive.  Enable them on your end, for the timeout
period you need for your physical teardown interval.

> Besides, ICMP traffic doesn't count as non-idle traffic over my
> ppp link.

Right, keepalives again.. :-)

-Andrew
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Gillham                            | This space left blank
gillham@whirlpool.com                     | inadvertently.
I speak for myself, not for my employer.  | Contact the publisher.