Maximum segment lifetime is the time a TCP segment can exist in the internetwork system. It is arbitrarily defined to be 2 minutes long.
The Maximum Segment Lifetime value is used to determine the TIME_WAIT interval (2*MSL)
The command that can be used to many Unix systems determine the TIME_WAIT interval is:
ndd -get /dev/tcp tcp_time_wait_interval60000 (60 seconds) is a common value.
On most linux systems, this value can be checked by the command below:
sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_fin_timeoutOr simply view the file in /proc:
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_fin_timeoutFamous quotes containing the words maximum and/or lifetime:
“I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity—it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one’s mind.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“It is well worth the efforts of a lifetime to have attained knowledge which justifies an attack on the root of all evil—viz. the deadly atheism which asserts that because forms of evil have always existed in society, therefore they must always exist; and that the attainment of a high ideal is a hopeless chimera.”
—Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910)