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Lecture 18-TCP Flow Control

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M.Hamid Raza Balouch (MHR 6219)
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8 views

Lecture 18-TCP Flow Control

Uploaded by

M.Hamid Raza Balouch (MHR 6219)
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

Lecture 18
TCP Flow Control
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

TCP Send/Receive buffers


Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

TCP Send/Receive buffers

• The received bytes over a TCP connection are


placed in the receive buffer.
• App process will read data from this buffer,
– not necessarily at the instant the data arrives.
– It may be busy with some other task

• If app process is relatively slow at reading data,


– the sender can very easily overflow the buffer
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

TCP Flow-Control

• TCP provides flow-control to eliminate the


possibility of the sender overflowing the
receiver’s buffer.

• It is a speed-matching service
– matching the rate at which the sender is sending
against the rate at which the receiving application is
reading.
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

TCP Flow-Control

• TCP sender maintains a variable called the


receive window.
– TCP is full-duplex, sender at each side of connection
maintains distinct receive window.

• It gives sender an idea of how much free buffer


space is available at the receiver
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

TCP Flow-Control
• Suppose that Host A is sending a large file to Host B
over a TCP connection.
• Host B allocates a receive buffer to this connection;
denote its size by RcvBuffer.
– The app reads from this buffer
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control
TCP Flow-Control – Receiver
Side

• We define following variables


–LastByteRead: the number of the last byte in the data stream
read from the buffer by the application process in B
–LastByteRcvd: the number of the last byte in the data stream that
has arrived from the network and has been placed in the receive
buffer at B
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control
TCP Flow-Control – Receiver
Side
• Because TCP is not permitted to overflow the allocated
buffer, we must have
– LastByteRcvd – LastByteRead <= RcvBuffer

• The receive window, denoted rwnd is set to the amount


of spare room in the buffer:
– rwnd = RcvBuffer – [LastByteRcvd – LastByteRead]

• Because the spare room changes with time, rwnd is


dynamic.
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control
TCP Flow-Control – Receiver
Side
LastByteRcvd LastByteRead
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control
TCP Flow-Control – Receiver
Side
• How does the connection use the variable rwnd to
provide the flow-control service?

• Host B tells Host A how much spare room it has in the


connection buffer by placing its current value of rwnd in
the receive window field of every segment it sends to A.

• Initially, Host B sets rwnd = RcvBuffer.


• How many rwnd variables should the Host B keep?
– One for each connection
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control
TCP Flow-Control – Sender
Side

• What variables Host A should keep?


–LastByteSent and LastByteAcked
–LastByteSent – LastByteAcked, is the amount of unacknowledged
data that A has sent into the connection

• For flow control, Host A keeps the amount of


unacknowledged data less than the value of rwnd
–LastByteSent – LastByteAcked <= rwnd
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control
TCP Flow-Control – Sender
Side
LastByteAcked LastByteSent

window

Sent and acked Sent but not acked Not yet sent

Next to be sent

12
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

Window Flow Control: Send Side


Packet Sent Packet Received
Source
SourcePort
Port Dest.
Dest.Port
Port Source
SourcePort
Port Dest.
Dest.Port
Port
Sequence
SequenceNumber
Number Sequence
SequenceNumber
Number
Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment
HL/Flags
HL/Flags Window
Window HL/Flags
HL/Flags Window
Window
D.
D.Checksum
Checksum Urgent
UrgentPointer
Pointer D.
D.Checksum
Checksum Urgent
UrgentPointer
Pointer
Options…
Options… Options...
Options...

acknowledged sent to be sent outside window


13
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

One special case …


• Host B’s receive buffer becomes full so that rwnd = 0
• After advertising rwnd = 0 to Host A, also suppose that B
has nothing to send to A

• When buffer empties, how would A know?


Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

Solution
• Host A continues to send segments with one data byte
when B’s receive window is zero.

• These segments will be acknowledged by the receiver.


Eventually the buffer will begin to empty and the
acknowledgments will contain a nonzero rwnd value.
Lecture 18:TCP Flow Control

Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach


6th edition
Jim Kurose, Keith Ross
Addison-Wesley
March 2012

A note on the origin of these ppt slides:


These slides are freely provided by the book authors and it represents a lot of work on their part.
We would like to thank J.F Kurose and K.W. Ross.

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