Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
TCP Operation

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TCP Operation

TCP Operation The next several readings come from RFC 793, TCP's Protocol Specification.


As noted above, the primary purpose of the TCP is to provide reliable, securable logical circuit or connection service between pairs of processes. To provide this service on top of a less reliable internet communication system requires facilities in the following areas:

    Basic Data Transfer
    Reliability
    Flow Control
    Multiplexing
    Connections
    Precedence and Security

The basic operation of the TCP in each of these areas is described in the following paragraphs. Basic Data Transfer:

    The TCP is able to transfer a continuous stream of octets in each
    direction between its users by packaging some number of octets into
    segments for transmission through the internet system.  In general,
    the TCPs decide when to block and forward data at their own
    convenience.

    Sometimes users need to be sure that all the data they have
    submitted to the TCP has been transmitted.  For this purpose a push
    function is defined.  To assure that data submitted to a TCP is
    actually transmitted the sending user indicates that it should be
    pushed through to the receiving user.  A push causes the TCPs to
    promptly forward and deliver data up to that point to the receiver.
    The exact push point might not be visible to the receiving user and
    the push function does not supply a record boundary marker.

Reliability:

    The TCP must recover from data that is damaged, lost, duplicated, or
    delivered out of order by the internet communication system.  This
    is achieved by assigning a sequence number to each octet
    transmitted, and requiring a positive acknowledgment (ACK) from the
    receiving TCP.  If the ACK is not received within a timeout
    interval, the data is retransmitted.  At the receiver, the sequence
    numbers are used to correctly order segments that may be received
    out of order and to eliminate duplicates.  Damage is handled by
    adding a checksum to each segment transmitted, checking it at the
    receiver, and discarding damaged segments.

    As long as the TCPs continue to function properly and the internet
    system does not become completely partitioned, no transmission
    errors will affect the correct delivery of data.  TCP recovers from
    internet communication system errors.

Flow Control:

    TCP provides a means for the receiver to govern the amount of data
    sent by the sender.  This is achieved by returning a "window" with
    every ACK indicating a range of acceptable sequence numbers beyond
    the last segment successfully received.  The window indicates an
    allowed number of octets that the sender may transmit before
    receiving further permission.

Multiplexing:

    To allow for many processes within a single Host to use TCP
    communication facilities simultaneously, the TCP provides a set of
    addresses or ports within each host.  Concatenated with the network
    and host addresses from the internet communication layer, this forms
    a socket.  A pair of sockets uniquely identifies each connection.
    That is, a socket may be simultaneously used in multiple
    connections.

    The binding of ports to processes is handled independently by each
    Host.  However, it proves useful to attach frequently used processes
    (e.g., a "logger" or timesharing service) to fixed sockets which are
    made known to the public.  These services can then be accessed
    through the known addresses.  Establishing and learning the port
    addresses of other processes may involve more dynamic mechanisms.

Connections:

    The reliability and flow control mechanisms described above require
    that TCPs initialize and maintain certain status information for
    each data stream.  The combination of this information, including
    sockets, sequence numbers, and window sizes, is called a connection.
    Each connection is uniquely specified by a pair of sockets
    identifying its two sides.

    When two processes wish to communicate, their TCP's must first
    establish a connection (initialize the status information on each
    side).  When their communication is complete, the connection is
    terminated or closed to free the resources for other uses.

    Since connections must be established between unreliable hosts and
    over the unreliable internet communication system, a handshake
    mechanism with clock-based sequence numbers is used to avoid
    erroneous initialization of connections.

Precedence and Security:

    The users of TCP may indicate the security and precedence of their
    communication.  Provision is made for default values to be used when
    these features are not needed.


Next: TCP Header Format

Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
TCP Operation