Part 2

6.4 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

6.5 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

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The Internet model has three protocols at the
transport layer: UDP, TCP & SCTP

The UDP is the simplest of the three.

The TCP is a complex transport layer protocol.

The SCTP is the new transport layer protocol

that is designed for multihomed, multistream
applications such as multimedia.

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Position of UDP, TCP, and SCTP in TCP/IP suite

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6.4: USER DATAGRAM PROTOCOL (UDP)

The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is called a

connectionless, unreliable transport protocol. It
does not add anything to the services of IP
except to provide process-to-process
communication instead of host-to-host
communication.

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UDP is a simpler protocol compared to TCP.

It has no connection, flow control, congestion control, sequencing,
packet acknowledgement and reliability.

There is no control mechanism for detecting lost packets, out-of-order
packets and duplicate packets.

It only provides error control for detecting corrupted packets using
checksum.

Processes which involved sending small message or do not care about
reliability can use UDP.

It is used by application protocols such as TFTP, SNMP, RTP and etc.

UDP is also a suitable transport protocol for multicasting of real time
multimedia.

In transport layer of TCP/IP model.

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Well-known ports used with UDP

Some ports number can be used by both UDP and TCP.

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 User datagram format

Source port number: the port number used by the process running on the source host.

Destination port number: the port number used by the process running on the
destination

Check sum: detects errors over the entire user datagram, (header+data)

Length: defines the total length of the user datagram, (header+data)

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Note

UDP length
= IP length – IP header’s length

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Pseudoheader for checksum calculation

The pseudoheader is a part of the header of the IP packet in which the user datagram
is to be encapsulated with some fields filled with 0s.
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Example 1
The next figure shows the checksum calculation for a
very small user datagram with only 7 bytes of data.
Because the number of bytes of data is odd, padding is
added for checksum calculation. The pseudoheader as
well as the padding will be dropped when the user
datagram is delivered to IP.

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Checksum calculation of a simple UDP user datagram

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6.5: 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.

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Well-known ports used by TCP

Like UDP, TCP provides process to process communication using port numbers.

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Stream delivery

TCP creates an environment in which the two processes seem to be connected by

an imaginary ‘tube’ that carries their data across the Internet.

The sending process produces (write to) the stream of bytes, and the receiving
Produces consumes (reads from) them.

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Sending and receiving buffers

TCP needs buffers for storage because the sending and receiving may not write or
read data at the same speed.

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TCP segments

The IP layer needs to send data in packets, not as stream of bytes.

At the transport layer- TCP groups a number of bytes together into a packet:segment,
adds a header to each segment (for control purposes) and delivers the segment to the
IP layer for transmission.
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Note

The bytes of data being transferred in

each connection are numbered by TCP.
The numbering starts with a randomly
generated number.

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Example 2

Suppose a TCP connection is transferring a file of 5000

bytes. The first byte is numbered 10,001. What are the
sequence numbers for each segment if data are sent in
five segments, each carrying 1000 bytes?

Solution:
The following shows the sequence number for each segment:

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Note

The value in the sequence number field of a

segment defines the number of the first data byte
contained in that segment.

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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.

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TCP segment format

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Control field

These bits enable flow control, connection establishment and termination,

connection abortion, and the mode of data transfer in TCP.

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Description of flags in the control field

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TCP Connection

Connection oriented transmission requires three phases:

connection
establishment, data transfer and connection termination.

Connection establishment requires three-way handshaking;
connection termination requires three- or four-way
handshaking with a half-close option.

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Connection establishment using three-way handshaking

Phase 1:

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Note

A SYN segment cannot carry data, but it

consumes one sequence number.

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Note

A SYN + ACK segment cannot

carry data, but does consume one
sequence number.

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Note

An ACK segment, if carrying no data, consumes

no sequence number.

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Data transfer

Phase 2:

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 Connection termination using three-way handshaking

Phase 3:

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Note

The FIN segment consumes one sequence

number if it does not carry data.

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Note

The FIN + ACK segment consumes

one sequence number if it
does not carry data.

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Half-close

Half-close: One end can stop sending data while still receiving data

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Flow Control

The sliding window is of TCP is of variable size and a byte-oriented.

The size of the window at one end is determined by the lesser of two values:
receiver window (rwnd) or congestion window (cwnd)

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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.

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Example 3
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.

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Example 4

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.

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Example 5

The next figure 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.

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39
 Note

Some points about TCP sliding windows:

The size of the window is the lesser of rwnd and cwnd.

The source does not have to send a full window’ sworth 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.
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Note

ACK segments do not consume sequence

numbers and are not acknowledged.

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Note

In modern implementations, a retransmission

occurs if the retransmission timer expires or three
duplicate ACK segments have arrived.

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Note

No retransmission timer is set for an ACK

segment.

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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.

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Error Control

Error control is handled by the checksum,

acknowledgement, and time-out.

Corrupted and lost segments are retransmitted, and

duplicate segments are discarded.

Data may arrive out of order and are temporarily stored by

the receiving TCP, but TCP guarantees that no out-of-
order segment is delivered to the process.

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Normal operation

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Lost segment

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Note

The receiver TCP delivers only ordered data to the

process.

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Fast retransmission

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Congestion Control

Congestion control refers to techniques and mechanisms

that can either prevent congestion, before it happens, or
remove congestion, after it has happened.

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Slow start, exponential increase

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Note

In the slow-start algorithm, the size of the

congestion window increases exponentially until
it reaches a threshold.

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Congestion avoidance, additive increase

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Note

In the congestion avoidance algorithm, the size of

the congestion window increases additively until
congestion is detected.

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 Note

An implementation reacts to congestion

detection in one of the following ways:

If detection is by time-out, a new slow start
phase starts.

If detection is by three ACKs, a new
congestion avoidance phase starts.

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TCP congestion policy summary

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TCP vs. UDP

TCP provides a reliable connection-oriented service,

whereas UDP provides an unreliable connectionless
service by delivering the UDP datagrams on a best-
effort basis.

UDP is simpler than TCP. There is no connection, flow

control, congestion control, sequencing, packet
acknowledgement, and reliability required by UDP
transmission.

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