[Eug]

Is there a keep alive option somewhere in Internet Connect for PPP connections?

[voodoo]

not for ppp through vpn - dunno about the analog modem ppp

[Eug]

The PPP would actually be for Bluetooth (as I am using a Bluetooth GPRS phone), but it's analogous to the analogue modem settings I believe.

I couldn't find Keep Alive settings for it, but maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place.

In the meantime I'm just using a web page that refreshes itself a couple of times a minute - my provider termininates the connection if the connection is idle for more than a minute or two.

[echosphere]

Yes, look in the System Prefs, Network tab and click on Ethernet.

At work and not on my Mac, so I can't say for sure where it is excactly located... but on the PPP tab somewhere is an Option button. Click on that and there is a whole slew of options. One is to stop Disconnect on Logout, Automatically connect to internet. AND, an option set the duration time for your connection, unselect this and it should remain on as long as you want (as long as your ISP doesn't disconnect you from there end after 2 or 3 hours as some do). Let me know if this works, or if you can't find it.
Cheers,Echo

[Eug]

Originally posted by echosphere:
Yes, look in the System Prefs, Network tab and click on Ethernet.

At work and not on my Mac, so I can't say for sure where it is excactly located... but on the PPP tab somewhere is an Option button. Click on that and there is a whole slew of options. One is to stop Disconnect on Logout, Automatically connect to internet. AND, an option set the duration time for your connection, unselect this and it should remain on as long as you want (as long as your ISP doesn't disconnect you from there end after 2 or 3 hours as some do). Let me know if this works, or if you can't find it.
Cheers,Echo

It's my ISP that disconnects me from their end, after a couple of minutes, but only if it's idle. (I can understand why, since it's a GPRS connection for my cell phone.)

[echosphere]

Woops! I need to take more time reading through thread responses... Thought you were talking about DSL Modem connection via PPP.
Sorry.

[Eug]

This shareware app does precisely this job:

Internet Connection Keeper.

A little steep though at $10.

[Arkham_c]

You could run a simple shell script like this:

Code:
#!/bin/sh

while [ true ]; do
    ping -q -c 5 www.google.com 
    sleep 60
done

Run that script like this (assuming it's keepup.sh)

Code:

[arkham@onyx] nohup ./keepup.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 &

That assumes you use bash of course. It will run the command and put it in the background. The command basically pings google 5 times, then sleeps for 60 seconds (rinse and repeat forever).

No need to waste 10 bucks when you can do it for free in 30 seconds.

[Eug]

Thanks, although I got around it by just writing a 3-line auto-refreshing webpage and loaded it onto my server. At the start of the connection I load that page and then just minimize it to the dock. It refreshes itself every 60 s. (I load it up in Camino or IE so that it stays independent of Safari. I usually use Safari for my browsing.)

Hey, maybe you should create a freeware app for this and stick it on Macupdate.

Ideally though, Apple should just include it in the settings.