3.1.2.1 Reconnect Timer

To work around transient failures (for example, lack of resources on the local machine, on the network, proxy, or at the IP-HTTPS server), the IP-HTTPS clients SHOULD use a reconnect timer to retry an unsuccessful HTTPS connection or to reestablish a successful HTTPS connection that was terminated abnormally.

The reconnection attempts follow an exponential back-off algorithm. The first failure marks the beginning of the reconnection algorithm. Upon the first failure, the reconnection timer is started for an initial timeout of 30 seconds. Each subsequent failure starts a reconnection timer with a timeout set to the time elapsed since the beginning of the algorithm, up to a maximum timeout of 15 minutes. Following this algorithm, reconnection attempts will be made after the following intervals since the first failure, where T represents the time taken for the connection attempt to fail.

• 30 seconds

• 30 + T seconds

• 60 + 2T seconds

• 120 + 3T seconds

• ... and so on, up to 15 minutes.

• Every 15 minutes thereafter.

A successful HTTPS connection resets the timer.

It is possible that other timing logic is dictated by the other protocols upon which the IP-HTTPS Protocol relies.