TRANSPORT LAYER

Process-to-Process Delivery:

UDP & TCP

23.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 23-3 TCP

TCP is a connection-oriented protocol; it creates a virtual connection between two TCPs to

send data. In addition, TCP uses flow and error control mechanisms at the transport level.

Topics discussed in this section:

TCP Services

TCP Features

Segment

A TCP Connection

Flow Control

Error Control
23.2
 Table 23.2 Well-known ports used by TCP

23.3
 Figure 23.13 Stream delivery

23.4
 Figure 23.14 Sending and receiving buffers

23.5
 Figure 23.15 TCP segments

23.6
 Note

The bytes of data being transferred in each connection are numbered

by TCP.

The numbering starts with a randomly generated number.

23.7
 Example 23.3

The following shows the sequence number for each segment:

23.8
 Note

The value in the sequence number field of a segment defines the

number of the first data byte

contained in that segment.

23.9
 Note

The value of the acknowledgment field in a segment defines

the number of the next byte a party expects to receive.

The acknowledgment number is cumulative.

23.10
 Figure 23.16 TCP segment format

23.11
 Figure 23.17 Control field

23.12
 Table 23.3 Description of flags in the control field

23.13
 Figure 23.18 Connection establishment using three-way handshaking

23.14
 Note

A SYN segment cannot carry data, but it consumes one sequence

number.

23.15
 Note

A SYN + ACK segment cannot

carry data, but does consume one

sequence number.

23.16
 Note

An ACK segment, if carrying no data, consumes no sequence number.

23.17
 Figure 23.19 Data transfer

23.18
 Figure 23.20 Connection termination using three-way handshaking

23.19
 Note

The FIN segment consumes one sequence number if it does

not carry data.

23.20
 Note

The FIN + ACK segment consumes

one sequence number if it

does not carry data.

23.21
 Figure 23.21 Half-close

23.22
 Figure 23.22 Sliding window

23.23
 Note

A sliding window is used to make transmission more efficient as well

as

to control the flow of data so that the destination does not become

overwhelmed with data.

TCP sliding windows are byte-oriented.

23.24
 Example 23.4

What is the value of the receiver window (rwnd) for host A if the receiver, host B, has a buffer size

of 5000 bytes and 1000 bytes of received and unprocessed data?

Solution

The value of rwnd = 5000 − 1000 = 4000. Host B can receive only 4000 bytes of data before

overflowing its buffer. Host B advertises this value in its next segment to A.

23.25
 Example 23.5

What is the size of the window for host A if the value of rwnd is 3000 bytes and the value of cwnd is

3500 bytes?

Solution

The size of the window is the smaller of rwnd and cwnd, which is 3000 bytes.

23.26
 Example 23.6

Figure 23.23 shows an unrealistic example of a sliding window. The sender has sent bytes up to

202. We assume that cwnd is 20 (in reality this value is thousands of bytes). The receiver has sent

an acknowledgment number of 200 with an rwnd of 9 bytes (in reality this value is thousands of

bytes). The size of the sender window is the minimum of rwnd and cwnd, or 9 bytes. Bytes 200 to

202 are sent, but not acknowledged. Bytes 203 to 208 can be sent without worrying about

acknowledgment. Bytes 209 and above cannot be sent.

23.27
 Figure 23.23 Example 23.6

23.28
 Note

Some points about TCP sliding windows:

cwnd.

❏ The source does not have to send a full window’s

worth of data.

❏ The window can be opened or closed by the

receiver, but should not be shrunk.

❏ The destination can send an acknowledgment at

any time as long as it does not result in a shrinking

window.

❏ The receiver can temporarily shut down the

window; the sender, however, can always send a

segment of 1 byte after the window is shut down.

ACK segments do not consume sequence numbers and are not

acknowledged.

23.30
 Note

In modern implementations, a retransmission occurs if the

retransmission timer expires or three duplicate ACK segments have

arrived.

23.31
 Note

No retransmission timer is set for an ACK segment.

23.32
 Note

Data may arrive out of order and be temporarily stored by the

receiving TCP,

but TCP guarantees that no out-of-order segment is delivered to the

process.

23.33
 Figure 23.24 Normal operation

23.34
 Figure 23.25 Lost segment

23.35
 Note

The receiver TCP delivers only ordered data to the process.

23.36
 Figure 23.26 Fast retransmission

23.37