diff --git a/src/cluster.c b/src/cluster.c
index 92601b001cee..85b3eecd8f63 100644
--- a/src/cluster.c
+++ b/src/cluster.c
@@ -736,6 +736,7 @@ void clusterAcceptHandler(aeEventLoop *el, int fd, void *privdata, int mask) {
             return;
         }
         connEnableTcpNoDelay(conn);
+        connKeepAlive(conn,server.cluster_node_timeout * 2);
 
         /* Use non-blocking I/O for cluster messages. */
         serverLog(LL_VERBOSE,"Accepting cluster node connection from %s:%d", cip, cport);