UNIT – 4

TRANSPORT LAYER

Introduction – Transport Layer Protocols – Services – Port Numbers – User Datagram

Protocol – Transmission Control Protocol – SCTP.

4.0 TRANSPORT LAYER

•• The transport layer is a 4th layer from the top.
•• The main role of the transport layer is to provide the communication services directly to
the application processes running on different hosts.
•• The transport layer provides a logical communication between application processes
running on different hosts. Although the application processes on different hosts are not
physically connected, application processes use the logical communication provided by
the transport layer to send the messages to each other.
•• The transport layer protocols are implemented in the end systems but not in the network
routers.
•• A computer network provides more than one protocol to the network applications. For
example, TCP and UDP are two transport layer protocols that provide a different set of
services to the network layer.
•• All transport layer protocols provide multiplexing/demultiplexing service. It also
provides other services such as reliable data transfer, bandwidth guarantees, and delay
guarantees.
•• Each of the applications in the application layer has the ability to send a message by
using TCP or UDP. The application communicates by using either of these two protocols.
Both TCP and UDP will then communicate with the internet protocol in the internet
layer. The applications can read and write to the transport layer. Therefore, we can say
that communication is a two-way process.
4.2 Computer Networks

4.1 TRANSPORT LAYER PROTOCOLS

The transport layer is represented by two protocols: TCP and UDP.

The IP protocol in the network layer delivers a datagram from a source host to the destination
host.

Nowadays, the operating system supports multiuser and multiprocessing environments, an

executing program is called a process. When a host sends a message to other host means that source
process is sending a process to a destination process. The transport layer protocols define some
connections to individual ports known as protocol ports.

An IP protocol is a host-to-host protocol used to deliver a packet from source host to the
destination host while transport layer protocols are port-to-port protocols that work on the top of the
IP protocols to deliver the packet from the originating port to the IP services, and from IP services
to the destination port.

Each port is defined by a positive integer address, and it is of 16 bits.

 Transport Layers 4.3

UDP
•• UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol.
•• UDP is a simple protocol and it provides nonsequenced transport functionality.
•• UDP is a connectionless protocol.
•• This type of protocol is used when reliability and security are less important than speed
and size.
•• UDP is an end-to-end transport level protocol that adds transport-level addresses,
checksum error control, and length information to the data from the upper layer.
•• The packet produced by the UDP protocol is known as a user datagram.
•• User Datagram Format
•• The user datagram has a 16-byte header which is shown below:
•• UDP packets, called user data grams, have a fixed-size header of 8 bytes. Figure shows
the format of a user datagram

Fig: UDP Structure

Source port number.

•• This is the port number used by the process running on the source host.
•• It is 16 bits long, which means that the port number can range from 0 to 65,535.
•• If the source host is the client (a client sending a request), the port number, in most
cases, is an ephemeral port number requested by the process and chosen by the UDP
software running on the source host.
•• If the source host is the server (a server sending a response), the port number, in most
cases, is a well-known port number.

Destination port number.

•• The port number used by the process running on the destination host.
•• It is also 16 bits long.
•• If the destination host is the server (a client sending a request), the port number, in most
cases, is a well-known port number.
•• If the destination host is the client (a server sending a response), the port number, in
most cases, is an ephemeral port number.
•• In this case, the server copies the ephemeral port number it has received in the request
packet.
4.4 Computer Networks

Length
•• This is a 16-bit field that defines the total length of the user datagram, header plus data.
•• The 16 bits can define a total length of 0 to 65,535 bytes.

Checksum.
•• This field is used to detect errors over the entire user datagram (header plus data).

UDP Operation
•• Connectionless Services
•• Flow and Error Control
•• Encapsulation and Decapsulation
•• Queuing

Use of UDP
•• UDP is suitable for a process that requires simple request-response communication with
little concern for flow and error control.
•• It is not usually used for a process such as FTP that needs to send bulk data
•• UDP is suitable for a process with internal flow and error control mechanisms.
•• UDP is used for management processes such as SNMP
•• UDP is used for some route updating protocols such as Routing Information Protocol
(RIP)

TCP
•• TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol.
•• It provides full transport layer services to applications.
•• It is a connection-oriented protocol means the connection established between both the
ends of the transmission. For creating the connection, TCP generates a virtual circuit
between sender and receiver for the duration of a transmission.
•• Features Of TCP protocol
•• Stream data transfer: TCP protocol transfers the data in the form of contiguous stream
of bytes. TCP group the bytes in the form of TCP segments and then passed it to the IP
layer for transmission to the destination. TCP itself segments the data and forward to
the IP.
Reliability: TCP assigns a sequence number to each byte transmitted and expects a positive
acknowledgement from the receiving TCP. If ACK is not received within a timeout interval, then
the data is retransmitted to the destination.

The receiving TCP uses the sequence number to reassemble the segments if they arrive out
of order or to eliminate the duplicate segments.
 Transport Layers 4.5

Flow Control: When receiving TCP sends an acknowledgement back to the sender indicating
the number the bytes it can receive without overflowing its internal buffer. The number of bytes is
sent in ACK in the form of the highest sequence number that it can receive without any problem.
This mechanism is also referred to as a window mechanism.

Multiplexing: Multiplexing is a process of accepting the data from different applications

and forwarding to the different applications on different computers. At the receiving end, the data
is forwarded to the correct application. This process is known as demultiplexing. TCP transmits the
packet to the correct application by using the logical channels known as ports.

Logical Connections: The combination of sockets, sequence numbers, and window sizes,
is called a logical connection. Each connection is identified by the pair of sockets used by sending
and receiving processes.

Full Duplex: TCP provides Full Duplex service, i.e., the data flow in both the directions at
the same time. To achieve Full Duplex service, each TCP should have sending and receiving buffers
so that the segments can flow in both the directions. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol. Suppose
the process A wants to send and receive the data from process B. The following steps occur:
•• Establish a connection between two TCPs.
•• Data is exchanged in both the directions.
•• The Connection is terminated.

Where,

Source port address: It is used to define the address of the application program in a source
computer. It is a 16-bit field.

Destination port address: It is used to define the address of the application program in a
destination computer. It is a 16-bit field.

Sequence number: A stream of data is divided into two or more TCP segments. The 32-bit
sequence number field represents the position of the data in an original data stream.

Acknowledgement number: A 32-field acknowledgement number acknowledge the data

from other communicating devices. If ACK field is set to 1, then it specifies the sequence number
that the receiver is expecting to receive.
4.6 Computer Networks

Header Length (HLEN): It specifies the size of the TCP header in 32-bit words. The
minimum size of the header is 5 words, and the maximum size of the header is 15 words. Therefore,
the maximum size of the TCP header is 60 bytes, and the minimum size of the TCP header is 20
bytes.

Reserved: It is a six-bit field which is reserved for future use.

Control bits: Each bit of a control field functions individually and independently. A control
bit defines the use of a segment or serves as a validity check for other fields.

There are total six types of flags in control field:

URG: The URG field indicates that the data in a segment is urgent.

ACK: When ACK field is set, then it validates the acknowledgement number.

PSH: The PSH field is used to inform the sender that higher throughput is needed so if
possible, data must be pushed with higher throughput.

RST: The reset bit is used to reset the TCP connection when there is any confusion occurs
in the sequence numbers.

SYN: The SYN field is used to synchronize the sequence numbers in three types of
segments: connection request, connection confirmation ( with the ACK bit set ), and confirmation
acknowledgement.

FIN: The FIN field is used to inform the receiving TCP module that the sender has finished
sending data. It is used in connection termination in three types of segments: termination request,
termination confirmation, and acknowledgement of termination confirmation.

Window Size: The window is a 16-bit field that defines the size of the window.

Checksum: The checksum is a 16-bit field used in error detection.

Urgent pointer: If URG flag is set to 1, then this 16-bit field is an offset from the sequence
number indicating that it is a last urgent data byte.

Options and padding: It defines the optional fields t hat convey the additional information
to the receiver.

Differences b/w TCP & UDP

Basis for Comparison TCP UDP

Definition TCP establishes a virtual UDP transmits the data directly to
circuit before transmitting the the destination computer without
data. verifying whether the receiver is
ready to receive or not.
 Transport Layers 4.7

Connection Type It is a Connection-Oriented It is a Connectionless protocol

protocol

Speed slow high

Reliability It is a reliable protocol. It is an unreliable protocol.
Header size 20 bytes 8 bytes
acknowledgement It waits for the acknowledge- It neither takes the acknowledge-
ment of data and has the abil- ment, nor it retransmits the damaged
ity to resend the lost packets. frame.

4.3 SERVICES
Services provided by the Transport Layer
•• The services provided by the transport layer are similar to those of the data link layer.
•• The data link layer provides the services within a single network while the transport
layer provides the services across an internetwork made up of many networks.
•• The data link layer controls the physical layer while the transport layer controls all the
lower layers.

The services provided by the transport layer protocols can be divided into five categories:
•• End-to-end delivery
•• Addressing
•• Reliable delivery
•• Flow control
•• Multiplexing

End-to-end delivery:
The transport layer transmits the entire message to the destination. Therefore, it ensures the
end-to-end delivery of an entire message from a source to the destination.

Reliable delivery:
The transport layer provides reliability services by retransmitting the lost and damaged
packets.
4.8 Computer Networks

The reliable delivery has four aspects:

•• Error control
•• Sequence control
•• Loss control
•• Duplication control

Error Control
•• The primary role of reliability is Error Control. In reality, no transmission will be 100
percent error-free delivery. Therefore, transport layer protocols are designed to provide
error-free transmission.
•• The data link layer also provides the error handling mechanism, but it ensures only
node-to-node error-free delivery. However, node-to-node reliability does not ensure the
end-to-end reliability.
•• The data link layer checks for the error between each network. If an error is introduced
inside one of the routers, then this error will not be caught by the data link layer. It only
detects those errors that have been introduced between the beginning and end of the
link. Therefore, the transport layer performs the checking for the errors end-to-end to
ensure that the packet has arrived correctly.

Sequence Control
•• The second aspect of the reliability is sequence control which is implemented at the
transport layer.
 Transport Layers 4.9

•• On the sending end, the transport layer is responsible for ensuring that the packets
received from the upper layers can be used by the lower layers. On the receiving end, it
ensures that the various segments of a transmission can be correctly reassembled.

Loss Control
Loss Control is a third aspect of reliability. The transport layer ensures that all the fragments
of a transmission arrive at the destination, not some of them. On the sending end, all the fragments
of transmission are given sequence numbers by a transport layer. These sequence numbers allow the
receivers transport layer to identify the missing segment.

Duplication Control
Duplication Control is the fourth aspect of reliability. The transport layer guarantees that
no duplicate data arrive at the destination. Sequence numbers are used to identify the lost packets;
similarly, it allows the receiver to identify and discard duplicate segments.

Flow Control
Flow control is used to prevent the sender from overwhelming the receiver. If the receiver is
overloaded with too much data, then the receiver discards the packets and asking for the retransmission
of packets. This increases network congestion and thus, reducing the system performance. The
transport layer is responsible for flow control. It uses the sliding window protocol that makes the
data transmission more efficient as well as it controls the flow of data so that the receiver does not
become overwhelmed. Sliding window protocol is byte oriented rather than frame oriented.

Multiplexing
The transport layer uses the multiplexing to improve transmission efficiency.

Multiplexing can occur in two ways:

•• Upward multiplexing: Upward multiplexing means multiple transport layer connections
use the same network connection. To make more cost-effective, the transport layer
sends several transmissions bound for the same destination along the same path; this is
achieved through upward multiplexing.

•• Downward multiplexing: Downward multiplexing means one transport layer

connection uses the multiple network connections. Downward multiplexing allows the
4.10 Computer Networks

transport layer to split a connection among several paths to improve the throughput.
This type of multiplexing is used when networks have a low or slow capacity.

Addressing
According to the layered model, the transport layer interacts with the functions of the session
layer. Many protocols combine session, presentation, and application layer protocols into a single
layer known as the application layer. In these cases, delivery to the session layer means the delivery
to the application layer. Data generated by an application on one machine must be transmitted to the
correct application on another machine. In this case, addressing is provided by the transport layer.

The transport layer provides the user address which is specified as a station or port. The port
variable represents a particular TS user of a specified station known as a Transport Service access
point (TSAP). Each station has only one transport entity.

The transport layer protocols need to know which upper-layer protocols are communicating.

4.4 PORT NUMBERS

In computer networking, a port is an endpoint of communication. Physical as well as
wireless connections are terminated at ports of hardware devices.

At the software level, within an operating system, a port is a logical construct that identifies
a specific process or a type of network service. Ports are identified for each protocol and address
combination by 16-bit unsigned numbers, commonly known as the port number.
 Transport Layers 4.11

Inbound packets are received, and the port number in the header is used to decide which
application is to be passed the packets.

Ports provide a multiplexing service for multiple services or multiple communication

sessions at one network address. In the client–server model of application architecture, a multiplexing
service is established, so that multiple simultaneous communication sessions may be initiated for
the same service.

The most commonly used protocols that use ports are the Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).

Specific port numbers are commonly reserved to identify specific services. The lowest
numbered 1024 port numbers are called the well-known port numbers. Higher-numbered ports are
available for general use by applications and are known as ephemeral ports.

A port number is a 16-bit unsigned integer, thus ranging from 0 to 65535. For TCP, port
number 0 is reserved and cannot be used, while for UDP, the source port is optional and a value of
zero means no port. A process associates its input or output channels via an Internet socket, which is
a type of file descriptor, with a transport protocol, an IP address, and a port number. This is known
as binding, and enables the process to send and receive data via the network.

Common port numbers

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for the global coordination
of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources. This includes the registration
of commonly used port numbers for well-known Internet services.

The port numbers are divided into three ranges: the well-known ports, the registered ports,
and the dynamic or private ports.

The well-known ports (also known as system ports) are those from 0 through 1023. The
requirements for new assignments in this range are stricter than for other registrations, examples
include:
20: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Data Transfer
21: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Command Control
22: Secure Shell (SSH) Secure Login
23: Telnet remote login service, unencrypted text messages
25: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) E-mail routing
53: Domain Name System (DNS) service
80: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) used in the World Wide Web
110: Post Office Protocol (POP3)
119: Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
123: Network Time Protocol (NTP)
143: Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) Management of digital mail
4.12 Computer Networks

161: Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

194: Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
443: HTTP Secure (HTTPS) HTTP over TLS/SSL

The registered ports are those from 1024 through 49151. IANA maintains the official list of
well-known and registered ranges.[3] The dynamic or private ports are those from 49152 through
65535. One common use for this range is for ephemeral ports.

4.5 TRANSMISSION CONTROL PROTOCOL

•• It is a more sophisticated transport protocol is one that offers a reliable, connection-
oriented, byte-stream service.
•• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is probably the most widely used protocol.
•• It also includes a flow-control. Like UDP, TCP supports a demultiplexing mechanism
that allows multiple application programs on any given host to simultaneously carry on
a conversation with their peers.
•• TCP also implements a highly tuned congestion-control mechanism.
•• End to End Issues
•• At the heart of TCP is the sliding window algorithm.
•• TCP supports logical connections between processes that are running on any two
computers in the Internet.
•• This means that TCP needs an explicit connection establishment phase during which the
two sides of the connection agree to exchange data with each other.
•• This difference is analogous to having to dial up the other party, rather than having a
dedicated phone line.
•• TCP also has an explicit connection teardown phase.
•• One of the things that happens during connection establishment is that the two parties
establish some shared state to enable the sliding window algorithm to begin.
•• connection teardown is needed so each host knows it is OK to free this state.
•• Second, whereas a single physical link that always connects the same two computers
has a fixed RTT, TCP connections are likely to have widely different round-trip times.

Addressing
TCP communication between two remote hosts is done by means of port numbers (TSAPs).
Ports numbers can range from 0 – 65535 which are divided as:
•• System Ports (0 – 1023)
•• User Ports ( 1024 – 49151)
•• Private/Dynamic Ports (49152 – 65535)
•• Connection Management
 Transport Layers 4.13

TCP communication works in Server/Client model. The client initiates the connection and
the server either accepts or rejects it. Three-way handshaking is used for connection management.

Establishment:
Client initiates the connection and sends the segment with a Sequence number. Server
acknowledges it back with its own Sequence number and ACK of client’s segment which is one more
than client’s Sequence number. Client after receiving ACK of its segment sends an acknowledgement
of Server’s response.

Release:
Either of server and client can send TCP segment with FIN flag set to 1. When the receiving
end responds it back by Acknowledging FIN, that direction of TCP communication is closed and
connection is released.

Bandwidth Management:
CP uses the concept of window size to accommodate the need of Bandwidth management.
Window size tells the sender at the remote end, the number of data byte segments the receiver at this
end can receive. TCP uses slow start phase by using window size 1 and increases the window size
exponentially after each successful communication.

For example, the client uses windows size 2 and sends 2 bytes of data. When the
acknowledgement of this segment received the windows size is doubled to 4 and next sent the
segment sent will be 4 data bytes long. When the acknowledgement of 4-byte data segment is
received, the client sets windows size to 8 and so on.

If an acknowledgement is missed, i.e. data lost in transit network or it received NACK, then
the window size is reduced to half and slow start phase starts again.

Three-Way Handshake
The following scenario occurs when a TCP connection is established:

The server must be prepared to accept an incoming connection. This is normally done by
calling socket, bind, and listen and is called a passive open.
4.14 Computer Networks

The client issues an active open by calling connect. This causes the client TCP to send a
“synchronize” (SYN) segment, which tells the server the client’s initial sequence number for the
data that the client will send on the connection. Normally, there is no data sent with the SYN; it just
contains an IP header, a TCP header, and possible TCP options (which we will talk about shortly).

The server must acknowledge (ACK) the client’s SYN and the server must also send its own
SYN containing the initial sequence number for the data that the server will send on the connection.
The server sends its SYN and the ACK of the client’s SYN in a single segment.

The client must acknowledge the server’s SYN.

The minimum number of packets required for this exchange is three; hence, this is called
TCP’s three-way handshake. We show the three segments in Figure

We show the client’s initial sequence number as J and the server’s initial sequence number
as K. The acknowledgment number in an ACK is the next expected sequence number for the end
sending the ACK. Since a SYN occupies one byte of the sequence number space, the acknowledgment
number in the ACK of each SYN is the initial sequence number plus one. Similarly, the ACK of
each FIN is the sequence number of the FIN plus one.

An everyday analogy for establishing a TCP connection is the telephone system The socket
function is the equivalent of having a telephone to use. bind is telling other people your telephone
number so that they can call you. listen is turning on the ringer so that you will hear when an
incoming call arrives. connect requires that we know the other person’s phone number and dial it.
accept is when the person being called answers the phone.

Having the client’s identity returned by accept (where the identify is the client’s IP address
and port number) is similar to having the caller ID feature show the caller’s phone number. One
difference, however, is that accept returns the client’s identity only after the connection has been
established, whereas the caller ID feature shows the caller’s phone number before we choose whether
to answer the phone or not. If the DNS is used, it provides a service analogous to a telephone book.
getaddrinfo is similar to looking up a person’s phone number in the phone book. getnameinfo would
be the equivalent of having a phone book sorted by telephone numbers that we could search, instead
of a book sorted by name.

TCP Options
Each SYN can contain TCP options. Commonly used options include the following:
MSS option. With this option, the TCP sending the SYN announces its maximum segment
size, the maximum amount of data that it is willing to accept in each TCP segment, on this connection.
The sending TCP uses the receiver’s MSS value as the maximum size of a segment that it sends.
 Transport Layers 4.15

Window scale option. The maximum window that either TCP can advertise to the other
TCP is 65,535, because the corresponding field in the TCP header occupies 16 bits. But, high-
speed connections, common in today’s Internet (45 Mbits/sec and faster, as described in RFC 1323
[Jacobson, Braden, and Borman 1992]), or long delay paths (satellite links) require a larger window
to obtain the maximum throughput possible. This newer option specifies that the advertised window
in the TCP header must be scaled (left-shifted) by 0–14 bits, providing a maximum window of
almost one gigabyte (65,535 x 214). Both end-systems must support this option for the window
scale to be used on a connection.

To provide interoperability with older implementations that do not support this option, the
following rules apply. TCP can send the option with its SYN as part of an active open. But it can
scale its windows only if the other end also sends the option with its SYN. Similarly, the server’s
TCP can send this option only if it receives the option with the client’s SYN. This logic assumes
that implementations ignore options that they do not understand, which is required and common,
but unfortunately, not guaranteed with all implementations.

Timestamp option: This option is needed for high-speed connections to prevent possible
data corruption caused by old, delayed, or duplicated segments.

TCP Connection Termination

•• While it takes three segments to establish a connection, it takes four to terminate a
connection.
•• One application calls close first, and we say that this end performs the active close. This
end’s TCP sends a FIN segment, which means it is finished sending data.
•• The other end that receives the FIN performs the passive close. The received FIN is
acknowledged by TCP. The receipt of the FIN is also passed to the application as an end-
of-file (after any data that may have already been queued for the application to receive),
since the receipt of the FIN means the application will not receive any additional data
on the connection.
•• Sometime later, the application that received the end-of-file will close its socket. This
causes its TCP to send a FIN.
•• The TCP on the system that receives this final FIN (the end that did the active close)
acknowledges the FIN.
•• Since a FIN and an ACK are required in each direction, four segments are normally
required. We use the qualifier “normally” because in some scenarios, the FIN in Step 1
is sent with data. Also, the segments in Steps 2 and 3 are both from the end performing
the passive close and could be combined into one segment. We show these packets
4.16 Computer Networks

•• A FIN occupies one byte of sequence number space just like a SYN. Therefore, the
ACK of each FIN is the sequence number of the FIN plus one.
•• Between Steps 2 and 3 it is possible for data to flow from the end doing the passive close
to the end doing the active close. This is called a half-close
•• The sending of each FIN occurs when a socket is closed. We indicated that the application
calls close for this to happen, but realize that when a Unix process terminates, either
voluntarily (calling exit or having the main function return) or involuntarily (receiving a
signal that terminates the process), all open descriptors are closed, which will also cause
a FIN to be sent on any TCP connection that is still open.
•• Although we show the client performing the active close, either end—the client or the
server—can perform the active close. Often the client performs the active close, but
with some protocols (notably HTTP/1.0), the server performs the active close.

TCP State Transition Diagram

The operation of TCP with regard to connection establishment and connection termination
can be specified with a state transition diagram.

Fig : TCP state transition diagram

 Transport Layers 4.17

There are 11 different states defined for a connection and the rules of TCP dictate the
transitions from one state to another, based on the current state and the segment received in that
state. For example, if an application performs an active open in the CLOSED state, TCP sends a
SYN and the new state is SYN_SENT. If TCP next receives a SYN with an ACK, it sends an ACK
and the new state is ESTABLISHED. This final state is where most data transfer occurs.

The two arrows leading from the ESTABLISHED state deal with the termination of a
connection. If an application calls close before receiving a FIN (an active close), the transition is to
the FIN_WAIT_1 state. But if an application receives a FIN while in the ESTABLISHED state (a
passive close), the transition is to the CLOSE_WAIT state.

Watching the Packets

The actual packet exchange that takes place for a complete TCP connection: the connection
establishment, data transfer, and connection termination.

The client in this example announces an MSS of 536 (indicating that it implements only the
minimum reassembly buffer size) and the server announces an MSS of 1,460 (typical for IPv4 on
an Ethernet).

Once a connection is established, the client forms a request and sends it to the server. We
assume this request fits into a single TCP segment (i.e., less than 1,460 bytes given the server’s
announced MSS). The server processes the request and sends a reply, and we assume that the reply
fits in a single segment (less than 536 in this example). We show both data segments as bolder
arrows. Notice that the acknowledgment of the client’s request is sent with the server’s reply. This
is called piggybacking and will normally happen when the time it takes the server to process the
request and generate the reply is less than around 200 ms. If the server takes longer, say one second,
we would see the acknowledgment followed later by the reply.
4.18 Computer Networks

It is important to notice in Figure that if the entire purpose of this connection was to send a
one-segment request and receive a one-segment reply, there would be eight segments of overhead
involved when using TCP. If UDP was used instead, only two packets would be exchanged: the
request and the reply. But switching from TCP to UDP removes all the reliability that TCP provides
to the application, pushing lots of these details from the transport layer (TCP) to the UDP application.

Another important feature provided by TCP is congestion control, which must then be
handled by the UDP application. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that many applications
are built using UDP because the application exchanges small amounts of data and UDP avoids the
overhead of TCP connection establishment and connection termination.

4.6 STREAM CONTROL TRANSMISSION PROTOCOL

The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is a computer networking communications
protocol which operates at the transport layer and serves a role similar to the popular protocols TCP
and UDP

SCTP provides some of the features of both UDP and TCP: it is message-oriented like UDP
and ensures reliable, in-sequence transport of messages with congestion control like TCP. It differs
from those protocols by providing multi-homing and redundant paths to increase resilience and
reliability.

Features of SCTP include:

•• Reliable transmission of both ordered and unordered data streams.
•• Multihoming support in which one or both endpoints of a connection can consist of
more than one IP address, enabling transparent fail-over between redundant network
paths.
•• Delivery of chunks within independent streams eliminates unnecessary head-of-line
blocking, as opposed to TCP byte-stream delivery.
•• Explicit partial reliability.
•• Path selection and monitoring to select a primary data transmission path and test the
connectivity of the transmission path.
•• Validation and acknowledgment mechanisms protect against flooding attacks and
provide notification of duplicated or missing data chunks.
•• Improved error detection suitable for Ethernet jumbo frames.

Multi homing
•• SCTP provides redundant paths to increase reliability.
•• Each SCTP end point needs to check reachability of the primary and redundant
addresses of the remote end point using a heartbeat. Each SCTP end point needs to ack
the heartbeats it receives from the remote end point.
•• When SCTP sends a message to a remote address, the source interface will only be
decided by the routing table of the host (and not by SCTP)
 Transport Layers 4.19

Asymmetric multi homing

In asymmetric multi homing, one of the two end points does not support multi homing.

Local multi homing - Remote single homing

In Local multi homing and Remote single homing, if the remote primary address is not
reachable, the SCTP association fails even if an alternate path is possible.

Packet structure
Every SCTP packet contains the Common header as seen above. The header contains four
different fields and is set for every SCTP packet.

•• Source port - bit 0-15. This field gives the source port of the packet, which port it was
sent from. The same as for TCP and UDP source port.
•• Destination port - bit 16-31. This is the destination port of the packet, ie., the port that
the packet is going to. It is the same as for the TCP and UDP destination port.
•• Verification Tag - bit 32-63. The verification tag is used to verify that the packet comes
from the correct sender. It is always set to the same value as the value received by the
other peer in the Initiate Tag during the association initialization, with a few exceptions:
•• An SCTP packet containing an INIT chunk must have the Verification tag set to 0.
4.20 Computer Networks

•• A SHUTDOWN COMPLETE chunk with the T-bit set must have the verification tag
copied from the verification tag of the SHUTDOWN-ACK chunk.
•• Packets containing ABORT chunk may have the verification tag set to the same
verification tag as the packet causing the ABORT.
•• Checksum - bit 64-95. A checksum calculated for the whole SCTP packet based on the
Adler-32 algorithm. Read RFC 2960 - Stream Control Transmission Protocol, appendix
B for more information about this algorithm.
Bits 0–7 8–15 16–23 24–31
+0 Source port Destination port
32 Verification tag
64 Checksum
96 Chunk 1 type Chunk 1 flags Chunk 1 length
128 Chunk 1 data
… …
… Chunk N type Chunk N flags Chunk N length
… Chunk N data

SCTP Types
Chunk Number Chunk Name
0 Payload Data (DATA)
1 Initiation (INIT)
2 Initiation Acknowledgement (INIT ACK)
3 Selective Acknowledgement (SACK)
4 Heartbeat Request (HEARTBEAT)
5 Heartbeat Acknowledgement (HEARTBEAT ACK)
6 Abort (ABORT)
7 Shutdown (SHUTDOWN)
8 Shutdown Acknowledgement (SHUTDOWN ACK)
9 Operation Error (ERROR)
10 State Cookie (COOKIE ECHO)
11 Cookie Acknowledgement (COOKIE ACK)
12 Reserved for Explicit Congestion Notification Echo (ECNE)
13 Reserved for Congestion Window Reduced (CWR)
14 Shutdown Complete (SHUTDOWN COMPLETE)
15-62 Reserved for IETF
63 IETF-defined chunk extensions
64-126 reserved to IETF
127 IETF-defined chunk extensions
 Transport Layers 4.21

Chunk Number Chunk Name

128-190 reserved to IETF
191 IETF-defined chunk extensions
192-254 reserved to IETF
255 IETF-defined chunk extensions
•• Chunk Flags - bit 8-15. The chunk flags are generally not used but are set up for future
usage if nothing else. They are chunk specific flags or bits of information that might
be needed for the other peer. According to specifications, flags are only used in DATA,
ABORT and SHUTDOWN COMPLETE packets at this moment.
•• Chunk Length - bit 16-31. This is the chunk length calculated in bytes. It includes all
headers, including the chunk type, chunk flags, chunk length and chunk value. If there
is no chunk value, the chunk length will be set to 4 (bytes).
•• Chunk Value - bit 32-n. This is specific to each chunk and may contain more flags and
data pertaining to the chunk type. Sometimes it might be empty, in which
case the chunk length will be set to 4.