Method and apparatus for monitoring a connection in a peer-to-peer network

The status of an appliance may be monitored using promiscuous packets and network reads. In order to establish a peer-to-peer connection between two appliances, a connection manager may issue a communication to a first appliance to establish a connection with a second, remote appliance. The connection manager issues a similar communication to the second appliance. The first appliance issues a promiscuous packet to the second appliance including connection information to establish a peer connection between the two appliances. The first appliance continues to issue the promiscuous packets even after the connection is established to indicate that the first appliance is still available. If the second appliance does not receive a promiscuous packet, the second appliance may attempt to perform a read over the connection. If the attempt to perform a read fails, the second appliance can notify the connection manager that the connection is no longer active.