Why do Windows sockets break after exactly 4 minutes?

[Geoffrey Talvola]

I've noticed that Windows sockets seem to close all by themselves if there
is no activity for 4 minutes.  Does anyone know why?  Is it possible to
control this behavior?  Just a link to some documentation of this behavior
would be greatly appreciated.

I don't think the same thing happens on Linux, or maybe it does but the
timeout is longer than 4 minutes there.

I've attached a set of 2 test scripts that provoke the behavior.  Start up
server.py first, then client.py, then wait 4 minutes.

- Geoff

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