How to interpret the output of netstat -o / netstat --timers

Question

netstat -o includes some timer information in the output but I haven't found an explanation of the output in the Timer column anywhere.
Can anybody explain this or point to an explanation?

This ist what the ouptput of netstat -o looks like (on Ubuntu 8.04).

Active Internet connections (w/o servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       Timer
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:443        111.111.11.210:5804     ESTABLISHEDkeepalive (6176.47/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:443        192.168.22.253:48379    TIME_WAIT  timewait (36.57/0/0)
tcp        0    924 192.168.22.1:47763      10.9.169.60:443         ESTABLISHEDon (0.34/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:443        192.168.111.99:4059     ESTABLISHEDkeepalive (6963.60/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:443        192.168.111.74:1729     ESTABLISHEDkeepalive (1393.60/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.56.1:42204      10.9.169.60:443         ESTABLISHEDoff (0.00/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.56.1:42207      10.9.169.60:443         ESTABLISHEDoff (0.00/0/0)
tcp        0    940 192.168.22.1:42186      10.9.169.60:443         ESTABLISHEDon (0.28/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:443        192.168.22.253:48367    TIME_WAIT  timewait (31.57/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:42234      10.9.169.60:443         ESTABLISHEDoff (0.00/0/0)
tcp        0      0 192.168.22.1:42209      10.9.169.60:443         ESTABLISHEDoff (0.00/0/0)

Answer 1

The first number is clearly the countdown timer. Depending on status type, once the timer times out, it will retry and send out another FIN or whatever needed packet to try again. So the second number keeps track of the number of retries. Notice that the timer increases because TCP has backoff timers in case there is a traffic condition. The backoff timer avoids excessively frequent retries. Each failure results in a larger and larger backoff. The backoff could be exponential growth or linear, depending on TCP stack. I have not figured out what the 3 figure is for. Always zero in my displays.