timeouts through a firewall?

[Matt Ashfield]

Hi All

We are seeing the following error:
Error: rlm_ldap: ldap_search() failed: Timed out while waiting for server to
respond. Please increase the timeout.

Our radius server talks to our LDAP server through a firewall. I'm wondering
if this has to do with the session lifetime setting on the firewall? If
there are no authentications taking place (we're in testing mode, and it was
at least 2-3 hours between client authentications), then I guess this
connection/session could be timed out by the firewall?

I just want to know if that makes sense before approaching the firewall guys
and asking to increase the timeout.

Thanks

Matt 
mda at unb.ca