NHibernate: how to set connection timeout

You can set it on the connection string, "Connection Timeout=x".

You can use the connection_timeout setting in your NHibernate configuration code. See section 3.4 of the documentation for full details.

The XML configuration for this is as follows...

<hibernate-configuration xmlns="urn:nhibernate-configuration-2.2">
    <session-factory>
        <property name="dialect">NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2012Dialect</property>
        <property name="connection.connection_string">
            Server=(local);initial catalog=theDb;Integrated Security=SSPI
        </property>
        <property name="connection_timeout">100</property>
    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

<!-- other app specific config follows -->

I'm using Fluent NHibernate so my configuration code is as follows...

FluentConfiguration configuration = Fluently.Configure()
                         .Database(MsSqlConfiguration.MsSql2012.ConnectionString(ConnectionString))
                         .ExposeConfiguration(cfg => cfg
                            .SetProperty("connection_timeout", "100")
                         .Mappings(m =>
                         {
                             var cfg = CreateAutomappings();
                             m.AutoMappings.Add(cfg);
                         });

With NHibernate you can provide the connection yourself:

sessionFactory.openSession(myConnection);

I wouldn't recommend it, because it's easier when sessions are managed by NHibernate.

You can still write your own connection provider, which sets whatever you want on the created connections.