System Variable for Connection Timeout Management
MySQL provides us with mainly two of these timeout settings – “wait_timeout” & “interactive_timeout”. These are two very important system variables that define the idle connection duration between the client and the server –
1. wait_timeout: It specifies the maximum amount of time a connection can stay idle (inactive).
USE-CASE: It is primarily used for scripts & applications that initiate the connection with the MySQL Server.
2. interactive_timeout: It is similar to wait_timeout but it’s mainly designed for an interactive environment if we have multiple clients interacting with our MySQL database and none of them does anything for a specified amount of time then the connection will be terminated.
USE-CASE: It is primarily used for clients that initiate the connection with the MySQL Server & create an interactive environment.
NOTE: Default_VALUE for both is: 28800 seconds (8-hours).
Connection Timeout with MySQL Database
The management of connection timeout is one of the most important aspects when working in client-server architecture in MySQL. A connection timeout can be defined as the duration of time for which a client waits expecting a response from the server before a connection is considered ‘unsuccessful‘.
When working with MySQL it becomes crucial to manage this setting. The client may keep facing the connection timeout issue which will lead to bad performance, unnecessary resource consumption & instability. To prevent this, we have to re-configure & increase the ‘wait_timeout’ or ‘interactive_timeout‘ settings in the MySQL Database.