Transmission Control Protocol

(TCP)

Chapter 15
TCP/IP Protocol Suite

2
 TCP Services

 Process-to-process communication
 Stream delivery service
 Connection-oriented service
 Reliable service
 Error control
 Flow control
 Congestion control

3
 Stream Delivery Service

 Buffering handles disparity between speed of

sending and receiving processes
 Segments created from the bytes in buffers

Segment N Segment 1
H H
Stream of bytes

4
TCP Segment Format

5
Control Field

6
 TCP Checksum

 Checksum in TCP is mandatory

7
 TCP Connection Establishment

 Three-way handshaking

Passive
Active open
open seq: 8000

UAPRS F
SYN
seq: 15000
Connection ack: 8001
opened nd: 5000
U A P R S F rw
SYN + ACK
seq: 8000
ack: 15001
UAPRS F
rwnd: 10000
ACK
See RFC 793
8
TCP Data Transfer

seq: 8001
Send
request ack: 15001
UAPRS F
Data Receive
bytes: 8001-9
000

Send seq: 9001

request ack: 15001
UAPRS F
Data Receive
bytes: 9001-1
0000

seq: 15001 Send

ack: 10001 request
UAPRSF
Data
17000
bytes: 15001-
seq: 10000
ack: 17001
UAPRS F
rwnd:10000

Connection Termination

9
 Pushing Data and Urgent Data

 Pushing
 Send immediately, not to wait for window to fill
 Set push bit PSH
 Deliver as soon as possible, not to wait for data
 Urgent
 Insert urgent data at beginning of segment
 Set urgent bit URG
 Urgent pointer defines end of urgent data
 Inform receiving application to take action

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 TCP Connection Termination

 Three-way handshaking

See RFC 793

11
Half-Close

12
TCP Connection Reset: Denying a Connection

13
TCP Connection Reset: Aborting a Connection

14
 Windows in TCP

 TCP uses two windows for each direction of

data transfer
 Send window
 Receive window

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Send Window

 Closes when acknowledgement received

 Opens/shrinks when rwnd advertised by receiver 16
Receive Window

 Closes when more bytes arrive from sender

 Opens when more bytes pulled by process 17
 Flow Control

 To avoid overwhelming receiver with data

 Implemented as sliding window
 Window size determined by receiver (rwnd)

Messages Flow control

are pushed
1 5 3 Messages
feedback are pulled

2
Segements are pushed
4
Flow control feedback

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Example of Flow Control

19
 Shrinking of Windows

 Receive window cannot shrink

 Send window can shrink
 To prevent shrinking of send window

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Example of Flow Control

Last

New

21
Example of Flow Control

Last

New

22
Example of Flow Control

Last

New

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 Shrinking of Windows – Example

Send

 Sender sent bytes 206 to 214

 Sender received Ack=210, rwnd=4

210
Send
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 Window Shutdown

 Receiver can shut down window (rwnd=0)

 Sender stops sending data until new rwnd arrived
 Sender always sends 1-byte segment (probing) to
prevent deadlock

25
 Silly Window Syndrome

 Sending very small segments caused by

 Sender creates data slowly
 Receiver consumes data slowly
 Inefficient use of network capacity

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 Solution to Syndrome Created by Sender

Nagle’s Algorithm:
1. Send first segment even if it is only 1 byte
2. Accumulate data in output buffer and wait
until receiving acknowledgement or enough
data filled maximum-size segment
3. Repeat step 2 for rest of transmission

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 Solution to Syndrome Created by Receiver

 Clark’s Solution
 Send acknowledgement but announce
rwnd=0 until enough space for maximum-
size segment or half of receive buffer empty
 Delayed Acknowledgement
 Delay sending acknowledgement until decent
space available in incoming buffer
 Not delayed more than 500 ms

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 Congestion Control

 To avoid and detect congestion in network

 Sender’s window size determined by
 Receiver (rwnd)
 Congestion in network (cwnd)
 Actual window size = minimum (rwnd, cwnd)
 Based on three phases
 Slow start
 Congestion avoidance
 Congestion detection

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 Slow Start: Exponential Increase
 Sender starts with cwnd = 1 MSS (maximum segment size)
 cwnd size increases by 1 MSS for each acknowledged segment
 cwnd size increases exponentially until it reaches threshold

1
cwnd
RTT
2
cwnd

RTT
4
cwnd

RTT
8

cwnd 30
 Congestion Avoidance: Additive Increase
 When cwnd size reaches threshold, congestion avoidance begins
 cwnd size increases by 1 MSS when whole window acknowledged
 cwnd size increases additively until congestion detected

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 Congestion Detection: Multiplicative Decrease

 Congestion detected by retransmission

 If congestion detected by time-out
 Set threshold to half current window size
 Set cwnd size to 1 MSS
 Start slow start phase
 If congestion detected by 3 duplicate ACKs
 Set threshold to half current window size
 Set cwnd size to threshold
 Start congestion avoidance phase

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Congestion Example

Threshold = 1/2 window

cwnd = 1

Threshold = 1/2 window

cwnd = Threshold

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TCP Timers

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 Retransmission Timer

 Value of retransmission time-out (RTO) based on:

 Smoothed RTT (round trip time)
 RTT Deviation
RTTD = (1 - β) RTTD + β . |RTTS – RTTM| (β = 1/4)
RTTS = (1 - α) RTTS + α . RTTM (α = 1/8)
RTO = RTTS + 4 . RTTD

 Karn’s Algorithm
 Do not consider RTT of retransmitted segment
 Do not update RTT until you send segment and receive ACK
 TCP uses exponential backoff strategy:
RTOnew = 2 x RTO

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Retransmission Timer – Example

0.8125 4.875

See RFC 6298

36
Karn’s Algorithm – Example

0.8125 4.875

4.875 = 9.75

9.75

1.203 6.73

37
 Persistence Timer

 To deal with zero-window-size advertisement

(deadlock)
 Set to value of retransmission time
 When time-out, TCP sends 1-byte probe segment
 If response not received, another probe sent and
timer doubled until 60s

38
 Keepalive Timer

 To prevent long idle connection

 After time-out (2 hours)
 Server sends probe segment to client
 If no response after 10 probes (every 75s),
server terminates connection

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 TIME-WAIT Timer

 Used during connection termination

 If last ACK segment lost
 If duplicate segment from one connection appears in next one
 Twice maximum segment lifetime (MSL=30s - 60s)

40
TCP Options

41
End-of-Option (EOP) Option

42
No-Operation (NOP) Option

43
 Maximum-Segment-Size (MSS) Option

 Each end defines MSS for segments it will receive

during connection (default = 536 bytes)
 Determined during connection establishment

44
 Window-Scale-Factor Option

 To increase window size defined in TCP header

 Determined during connection establishment

new window size =

window size defined in header x 2window scale factor

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 Timestamp Option

 To measure round-trip time (RTT)

 Protection against wrapped sequence numbers (PAWS)
 Identity of segment defined as combination of
timestamp and sequence number

46
Timestamp Option – Measuring RTT

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 SACK-Permitted and SACK Options

 Allow receiver to send selective ACK (SACK)

 SACK-permitted exchanged during connection
establishment to use SACK during data transfer
 SACK includes list of
 Out-of-order segments
 Duplicate segments

48
SACK-Permitted and SACK Options

49
SACK Option – Reporting Out-of-Order

50
SACK Option – Reporting Out-of-Order and Duplicate

51
SACK Option – Reporting Duplicate of Out-of-Order

52