TCP

Next Layer in OSI Model is recognized as Transport Layer (Layer-4). All

modules and procedures pertaining to transportation of data or data
stream are categorized into this layer. As all other layers, this layer
communicates with its peer Transport layer of the remote host.

Transport layer offers peer-to-peer and end-to-end connection between

two processes on remote hosts. Transport layer takes data from upper
layer (i.e. Application layer) and then breaks it into smaller size
segments, numbers each byte, and hands over to lower layer (Network
Layer) for delivery.

Functions
 This Layer is the first one which breaks the information data, supplied by
Application layer in to smaller units called segments. It numbers every byte
in the segment and maintains their accounting.

 This layer ensures that data must be received in the same sequence in which
it was sent.

 This layer provides end-to-end delivery of data between hosts which may or
may not belong to the same subnet.

 All server processes intend to communicate over the network are equipped
with well-known Transport Service Access Points (TSAPs) also known as port
numbers.

End-to-End Communication
A process on one host identifies its peer host on remote network by
means of TSAPs, also known as Port numbers. TSAPs are very well
defined and a process which is trying to communicate with its peer
knows this in advance.
For example, when a DHCP client wants to communicate with remote
DHCP server, it always requests on port number 67. When a DNS client
wants to communicate with remote DNS server, it always requests on
port number 53 (UDP).

The two main Transport layer protocols are:

 Transmission Control Protocol

It provides reliable communication between two hosts.

 User Datagram Protocol

It provides unreliable communication between two hosts.

The transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the most important

protocols of Internet Protocols suite. It is most widely used protocol for
data transmission in communication network such as internet.

Features
 TCP is reliable protocol. That is, the receiver always sends either positive or
negative acknowledgement about the data packet to the sender, so that the
sender always has bright clue about whether the data packet is reached the
destination or it needs to resend it.
 TCP ensures that the data reaches intended destination in the same order it
was sent.
 TCP is connection oriented. TCP requires that connection between two remote
points be established before sending actual data.
 TCP provides error-checking and recovery mechanism.
 TCP provides end-to-end communication.
 TCP provides flow control and quality of service.
  TCP operates in Client/Server point-to-point mode.
 TCP provides full duplex server, i.e. it can perform roles of both receiver and
sender.

Header
The length of TCP header is minimum 20 bytes long and maximum 60
bytes.

 Source Port (16-bits)  - It identifies source port of the application process

on the sending device.
 Destination Port (16-bits) - It identifies destination port of the application
process on the receiving device.
 Sequence Number (32-bits) - Sequence number of data bytes of a
segment in a session.
 Acknowledgement Number (32-bits)  - When ACK flag is set, this
number contains the next sequence number of the data byte expected and
works as acknowledgement of the previous data received.
 Data Offset (4-bits)  - This field implies both, the size of TCP header (32-
bit words) and the offset of data in current packet in the whole TCP segment.
 Reserved (3-bits)  - Reserved for future use and all are set zero by default.
 Flags (1-bit each)
o NS - Nonce Sum bit is used by Explicit Congestion Notification
signaling process.
o CWR - When a host receives packet with ECE bit set, it sets
Congestion Windows Reduced to acknowledge that ECE received.
o ECE -It has two meanings:
 If SYN bit is clear to 0, then ECE means that the IP packet has
its CE (congestion experience) bit set.
 If SYN bit is set to 1, ECE means that the device is ECT capable.
 o URG - It indicates that Urgent Pointer field has significant data and
should be processed.
o ACK - It indicates that Acknowledgement field has significance. If ACK
is cleared to 0, it indicates that packet does not contain any
acknowledgement.
o PSH - When set, it is a request to the receiving station to PUSH data
(as soon as it comes) to the receiving application without buffering it.
o RST - Reset flag has the following features:
 It is used to refuse an incoming connection.
 It is used to reject a segment.
 It is used to restart a connection.
o SYN - This flag is used to set up a connection between hosts.
o FIN - This flag is used to release a connection and no more data is
exchanged thereafter. Because packets with SYN and FIN flags have
sequence numbers, they are processed in correct order.
 Windows Size  - This field is used for flow control between two stations and
indicates the amount of buffer (in bytes) the receiver has allocated for a
segment, i.e. how much data is the receiver expecting.
 Checksum - This field contains the checksum of Header, Data and Pseudo
Headers.
 Urgent Pointer  - It points to the urgent data byte if URG flag is set to 1.
 Options  - It facilitates additional options which are not covered by the
regular header. Option field is always described in 32-bit words. If this field
contains data less than 32-bit, padding is used to cover the remaining bits to
reach 32-bit boundary.

Addressing
TCP communication between two remote hosts is done by means of port
numbers (TSAPs). Ports numbers can range from 0 – 65535 which are
divided as:

 System Ports (0 – 1023)

 User Ports ( 1024 – 49151)

 Private/Dynamic Ports (49152 – 65535)

Connection Management
TCP communication works in Server/Client model. The client initiates the
connection and the server either accepts or rejects it. Three-way
handshaking is used for connection management.

Establishment
Client initiates the connection and sends the segment with a Sequence
number. Server acknowledges it back with its own Sequence number and
ACK of client’s segment which is one more than client’s Sequence
number. Client after receiving ACK of its segment sends an
acknowledgement of Server’s response.

Release
Either of server and client can send TCP segment with FIN flag set to 1.
When the receiving end responds it back by ACKnowledging FIN, that
direction of TCP communication is closed and connection is released.

Bandwidth Management
TCP uses the concept of window size to accommodate the need of
Bandwidth management. Window size tells the sender at the remote end,
the number of data byte segments the receiver at this end can receive.
TCP uses slow start phase by using window size 1 and increases the
window size exponentially after each successful communication.

For example, the client uses windows size 2 and sends 2 bytes of data.
When the acknowledgement of this segment received the windows size is
doubled to 4 and next sent the segment sent will be 4 data bytes long.
When the acknowledgement of 4-byte data segment is received, the
client sets windows size to 8 and so on.

If an acknowledgement is missed, i.e. data lost in transit network or it

received NACK, then the window size is reduced to half and slow start
phase starts again.

Error Control &and Flow Control

TCP uses port numbers to know what application process it needs to
handover the data segment. Along with that, it uses sequence numbers
to synchronize itself with the remote host. All data segments are sent
and received with sequence numbers. The Sender knows which last data
segment was received by the Receiver when it gets ACK. The Receiver
knows about the last segment sent by the Sender by referring to the
sequence number of recently received packet.

If the sequence number of a segment recently received does not match

with the sequence number the receiver was expecting, then it is
discarded and NACK is sent back. If two segments arrive with the same
sequence number, the TCP timestamp value is compared to make a
decision.

Multiplexing
The technique to combine two or more data streams in one session is
called Multiplexing. When a TCP client initializes a connection with
Server, it always refers to a well-defined port number which indicates the
application process. The client itself uses a randomly generated port
number from private port number pools.
Using TCP Multiplexing, a client can communicate with a number of
different application process in a single session. For example, a client
requests a web page which in turn contains different types of data
(HTTP, SMTP, FTP etc.) the TCP session timeout is increased and the
session is kept open for longer time so that the three-way handshake
overhead can be avoided.

This enables the client system to receive multiple connection over single
virtual connection. These virtual connections are not good for Servers if
the timeout is too long.

Congestion Control
When large amount of data is fed to system which is not capable of
handling it, congestion occurs. TCP controls congestion by means of
Window mechanism. TCP sets a window size telling the other end how
much data segment to send. TCP may use three algorithms for
congestion control:

 Additive increase, Multiplicative Decrease

 Slow Start
 Timeout React

Timer Management
TCP uses different types of timer to control and management various
tasks:

Keep-alive timer:
 This timer is used to check the integrity and validity of a connection.
 When keep-alive time expires, the host sends a probe to check if the
connection still exists.

Retransmission timer:
 This timer maintains stateful session of data sent.
 If the acknowledgement of sent data does not receive within the
Retransmission time, the data segment is sent again.

Persist timer:
 TCP session can be paused by either host by sending Window Size 0.
  To resume the session a host needs to send Window Size with some larger
value.
 If this segment never reaches the other end, both ends may wait for each
other for infinite time.
 When the Persist timer expires, the host re-sends its window size to let the
other end know.
 Persist Timer helps avoid deadlocks in communication.

Timed-Wait:
 After releasing a connection, either of the hosts waits for a Timed-Wait time
to terminate the connection completely.
 This is in order to make sure that the other end has received the
acknowledgement of its connection termination request.
 Timed-out can be a maximum of 240 seconds (4 minutes).

Crash Recovery
TCP is very reliable protocol. It provides sequence number to each of
byte sent in segment. It provides the feedback mechanism i.e. when a
host receives a packet, it is bound to ACK that packet having the next
sequence number expected (if it is not the last segment).

When a TCP Server crashes mid-way communication and re-starts its

process it sends TPDU broadcast to all its hosts. The hosts can then send
the last data segment which was never unacknowledged and carry
onwards.