TCP Flow Control

TCP is more than a basic send-receive-acknowledge-send progression. TCP has sophisticated algorithms to optimize flow control on both the sender side and the receiver side. The algorithm that implements flow control on both the sender side and the receiver side follows what is known as the sliding window principle.

Receiver-Side Window Advertisements

A TCP window advertisement determines the maximum amount of data that can be sent before the sender must wait for an acknowledgement from the receiver. By advertising its window size, the receiver side manages flow control. With window advertisements, the receiving host continually informs the sending host of how much data it is prepared to receive.

Each TCP segment from the receiver carries an acknowledgement and a window advertisement. Each acknowledgement specifies how many bytes have been received, and each window advertisement specifies how many additional bytes the receiver is prepared to accept. The size contained in the window advertisements varies over time; therefore, it is considered a sliding window.

Sender-Side Congestion Window

To avoid network congestion, TCP on the sender side maintains a congestion window. The congestion window adjusts the amount of data that can be sent according to the number of segments that were recently lost or acknowledged in transit. Lost segments are detected if a transmission timeout occurs before an acknowledgement is received.

• As acknowledgements begin to be received, TCP doubles the size of the congestion window.
• If congestion is detected, the congestion window halves in size.
• If congestion continues, the congestion window can be halved multiple times.

Depending upon the severity of the congestion, TCP can use either a slow-start or congestion-avoidance algorithm to begin to increase the size of the congestion window.

• The slow-start algorithm quickly increases window size by doubling it for each successful transmission.
• The congestion-avoidance algorithm slowly increases the window’s size by increasing it only one segment at a time for each successful transmission.

TCP Large Window

The Solaris implements RFC 1323, which allows larger TCP window advertisement sizes to enhance performance over high-delay, high-bandwidth networks, such as satellite networks.

A standard TCP header uses a 16-bit field to report the receiver window size to the sender. Therefore, the largest window that can be used is 216 or 64 Kbytes. RFC 1323 introduces a mechanism to increase the window size to 230 or 1 Gbyte.

Sequence Numbers

A fundamental notion in the design is that every octet of data sent over a TCP connection has a sequence number. Since every octet is sequenced, each of them can be acknowledged. The acknowledgment mechanism employed is cumulative so that an acknowledgment of sequence number X indicates that all octets up to but not including X have been received. This mechanism allows for straight-forward duplicate detection in the presence of retransmission. Numbering of octets within a segment is that the first data octet immediately following the header is the lowest numbered, and the following octets are numbered consecutively.

It is essential to remember that the actual sequence number space is finite, though very large. This space ranges from 0 to 2**32 - 1. Since the space is finite, all arithmetic dealing with sequence numbers must be performed modulo 2**32. This unsigned arithmetic preserves the relationship of sequence numbers as they cycle from 2**32 - 1 to 0 again. There are some subtleties to computer modulo arithmetic, so great care should be taken in programming the comparison of such values. The symbol "=<" means "less than or equal" (modulo 2**32).

The typical kinds of sequence number comparisons which the TCP must perform include:

    (a)  Determining that an acknowledgment refers to some sequence
         number sent but not yet acknowledged.

    (b)  Determining that all sequence numbers occupied by a segment
         have been acknowledged (e.g., to remove the segment from a
         retransmission queue).

    (c)  Determining that an incoming segment contains sequence numbers
         which are expected (i.e., that the segment "overlaps" the
         receive window).

In response to sending data the TCP will receive acknowledgments. The following comparisons are needed to process the acknowledgments.

    SND.UNA = oldest unacknowledged sequence number

    SND.NXT = next sequence number to be sent

    SEG.ACK = acknowledgment from the receiving TCP (next sequence
              number expected by the receiving TCP)

    SEG.SEQ = first sequence number of a segment

    SEG.LEN = the number of octets occupied by the data in the segment
              (counting SYN and FIN)

    SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 = last sequence number of a segment

A new acknowledgment (called an "acceptable ack"), is one for which the inequality below holds:

    SND.UNA < SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT

A segment on the retransmission queue is fully acknowledged if the sum of its sequence number and length is less or equal than the acknowledgment value in the incoming segment. When data is received the following comparisons are needed:

    RCV.NXT = next sequence number expected on an incoming segments, and
        is the left or lower edge of the receive window

    RCV.NXT+RCV.WND-1 = last sequence number expected on an incoming
        segment, and is the right or upper edge of the receive window

    SEG.SEQ = first sequence number occupied by the incoming segment

    SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 = last sequence number occupied by the incoming
        segment

A segment is judged to occupy a portion of valid receive sequence space if

    RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

or

    RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

The first part of this test checks to see if the beginning of the segment falls in the window, the second part of the test checks to see if the end of the segment falls in the window; if the segment passes either part of the test it contains data in the window.

Actually, it is a little more complicated than this. Due to zero windows and zero length segments, we have four cases for the acceptability of an incoming segment:

    Segment Receive  Test
    Length  Window
    ------- -------  -------------------------------------------

       0       0     SEG.SEQ = RCV.NXT

       0      >0     RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

      >0       0     not acceptable

      >0      >0     RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND
                  or RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

Note that when the receive window is zero no segments should be acceptable except ACK segments. Thus, it is be possible for a TCP to maintain a zero receive window while transmitting data and receiving ACKs. However, even when the receive window is zero, a TCP must process the RST and URG fields of all incoming segments.

We have taken advantage of the numbering scheme to protect certain control information as well. This is achieved by implicitly including some control flags in the sequence space so they can be retransmitted and acknowledged without confusion (i.e., one and only one copy of the control will be acted upon). Control information is not physically carried in the segment data space. Consequently, we must adopt rules for implicitly assigning sequence numbers to control. The SYN and FIN are the only controls requiring this protection, and these controls are used only at connection opening and closing. For sequence number purposes, the SYN is considered to occur before the first actual data octet of the segment in which it occurs, while the FIN is considered to occur after the last actual data octet in a segment in which it occurs. The segment length (SEG.LEN) includes both data and sequence space occupying controls. When a SYN is present then SEG.SEQ is the sequence number of the SYN.

Initial Sequence Number Selection

The protocol places no restriction on a particular connection being used over and over again. A connection is defined by a pair of sockets. New instances of a connection will be referred to as incarnations of the connection. The problem that arises from this is -- "how does the TCP identify duplicate segments from previous incarnations of the connection?" This problem becomes apparent if the connection is being opened and closed in quick succession, or if the connection breaks with loss of memory and is then reestablished.

To avoid confusion we must prevent segments from one incarnation of a connection from being used while the same sequence numbers may still be present in the network from an earlier incarnation. We want to assure this, even if a TCP crashes and loses all knowledge of the sequence numbers it has been using. When new connections are created, an initial sequence number (ISN) generator is employed which selects a new 32 bit ISN. The generator is bound to a (possibly fictitious) 32 bit clock whose low order bit is incremented roughly every 4 microseconds. Thus, the ISN cycles approximately every 4.55 hours. Since we assume that segments will stay in the network no more than the Maximum Segment Lifetime (MSL) and that the MSL is less than 4.55 hours we can reasonably assume that ISN's will be unique.

For each connection there is a send sequence number and a receive sequence number. The initial send sequence number (ISS) is chosen by the data sending TCP, and the initial receive sequence number (IRS) is learned during the connection establishing procedure.

For a connection to be established or initialized, the two TCPs must synchronize on each other's initial sequence numbers. This is done in an exchange of connection establishing segments carrying a control bit called "SYN" (for synchronize) and the initial sequence numbers. As a shorthand, segments carrying the SYN bit are also called "SYNs". Hence, the solution requires a suitable mechanism for picking an initial sequence number and a slightly involved handshake to exchange the ISN's.

The synchronization requires each side to send it's own initial sequence number and to receive a confirmation of it in acknowledgment from the other side. Each side must also receive the other side's initial sequence number and send a confirming acknowledgment.

    1) A --> B  SYN my sequence number is X
    2) A <-- B  ACK your sequence number is X
    3) A <-- B  SYN my sequence number is Y
    4) A --> B  ACK your sequence number is Y

Because steps 2 and 3 can be combined in a single message this is called the three way (or three message) handshake.

A three way handshake is necessary because sequence numbers are not tied to a global clock in the network, and TCPs may have different mechanisms for picking the ISN's. The receiver of the first SYN has no way of knowing whether the segment was an old delayed one or not, unless it remembers the last sequence number used on the connection (which is not always possible), and so it must ask the sender to verify this SYN. The three way handshake and the advantages of a clock-driven scheme are discussed in [3].

Knowing When to Keep Quiet

To be sure that a TCP does not create a segment that carries a sequence number which may be duplicated by an old segment remaining in the network, the TCP must keep quiet for a maximum segment lifetime (MSL) before assigning any sequence numbers upon starting up or recovering from a crash in which memory of sequence numbers in use was lost. For this specification the MSL is taken to be 2 minutes. This is an engineering choice, and may be changed if experience indicates it is desirable to do so. Note that if a TCP is reinitialized in some sense, yet retains its memory of sequence numbers in use, then it need not wait at all; it must only be sure to use sequence numbers larger than those recently used.

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