TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols

Chapter 20. TCP Bulk Data Flow

Introdution

In Chapter 15 we saw that TFTP uses a stop-and-wait protocol. The sender of a data block required an acknowledgment for that block before the next block was sent. In this chapter we'll see that TCP uses a different form of flow control called a sliding window protocol. It allows the sender to transmit multiple packets before it stops and waits for an acknowledgment. This leads to faster data transfer, since the sender doesn't have to stop and wait for an acknowledgment each time a packet is sent.

We also look at TCP's PUSH flag, something we've seen in many of the previous examples. We also look at slow start, the technique used by TCP for getting the flow of data established on a connection, and then we ...