Question about the purpose of socket.pings and its necessity

[Madriix]

Hi,

Since this afternoon, I have commented out the following code in Server.js:

socket.pings = setInterval(function () {
    if (socket.lastping.length > 0) {
        socket.end();
    }
    socket.lastping = Date.now() + ".jbnc";
    if (socket.writable)
        socket.write("PING :" + socket.lastping + "\n");
    else {
        clearInterval(socket.pings);
        socket.end();
    }
    if (global.DEBUG) {
        console.log("PING :" + socket.lastping + "\n");
    }
}, global.BOUNCER_SHACK * 1000, socket);

I also commented this out in Server.js:

clearInterval(socket.pings);

And this in ClientConnect.js:

clearInterval(this.client.parents[x].pings);

I have not noticed any issues with this connection flow:

1. Connect to jBNC using mIRC
2. jBNC is connected to UnrealIRCd 6.2.1 (with a pingfreq of 180 seconds in the Class block)
3. You stay online, or you /quit (leaving jBNC running in the background).
   There are no issues even with the removal of socket.pings.

I ran the same test using a web client based on irc-framework, and no problems were detected either.

What is the purpose of socket.pings? What was it originally added to prevent?