VxWorks initiating connect() it fails at startup, but succeeds later

Question

I'm using VxWorks 5.4 and attempting to connect to a server via TCP. A server which I'm going to be sending logs to, but for some reason at boot it fails or takes even up to 6 seconds - and is blocking the continuation of the task that the connection attempt was made in, which obviously is a big no no.

I have checked if the problem is one the server side by making a simple c program in windows that would connect to that server, and it takes no time at all (milliseconds).

I have "solved" the problem by making a task that would attempt "connectwithtineout" every 1-2 seconds and it does work (initiates the connection after around 2 fails in around 20ms), but I don't really like this approach and would have liked to initiate the actual connection when whatever I need that I'm missing is there and up instead of checking if I can connect every time.

Answer 1

After trying to investigate what the issue could have been, eventually the problem was about how a session is being closed between my system and the server.

You see, when you have a client running on some app on your windows/ or whatever other system, when you shut it down, it goes through some processes that close the session properly.

That is not the case in my system where to close it I essentially unplug the wire - thereby not having my system go through a shutdown process that involves properly closing the session.

After the system is up again, the connect function cannot be performed because my system tries to make the same session as the "dead one" which the server thinks is running.

Solving the problem was easy from the server side, just have a keepalive functionality - if your system doesn't respond for a while that you decide, close the session.