Persistent keepalive waits a full interval before the initial send
Author: VastBlastCreated Jul 21, 2026Updated Jul 21, 2026
A peer configured with persistent keepalive waits one full interval before its first send. An idle peer therefore does not initiate a handshake until, for example, 25 seconds after startup (if set to 25sec).
Official implementations send immediately: wireguard-go sends a keepalive when the interface comes up, and Linux sends one when persistent keepalive is enabled.
Source: cloudflare/boringtun