Increasing robustness of connections by offloading keep alive protocol data units

A network device, comprising:

• one or more memories;
• and
• one or more processors to:
• establish, via a routing protocol daemon (RPD) of a network device, protocol sockets with peer network devices;
• establish a socket between the RPD and a periodic packet management daemon (PPMD) of the network device;
• provide file descriptors of the protocol sockets from the RPD to the PPMD, via the socket established between the RPD and the PPMD;
• provide, from the RPD and via the protocol sockets, non-keep alive protocol data units (PDUs) to the peer network devices;
• and
• provide, from the PPMD and via the protocol sockets, keep alive PDUs to the peer network devices.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a set of instructions, the set of instructions comprising:

• one or more instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a network device, cause the network device to:
• establish, via a routing protocol daemon (RPD) of a network device, border gateway protocol (BGP) sockets with peer network devices;
• establish a socket between the RPD and a periodic packet management daemon (PPMD) of the network device;
• provide file descriptors of the BGP sockets from the RPD to the PPMD, via the socket established between the RPD and the PPMD and a socket-level control message rights socket option;
• provide, from the RPD and via the BGP sockets, non-keep alive protocol data units (PDUs) to the peer network devices;
• and
• provide, from the PPMD and via the BGP sockets, keep alive PDUs to the peer network devices.