Let us first use packetdrill_ to explore the evolution of the TCP retransmission timeout. The value of this timeout is set based on the measured round-trip-time and its variance. When the retransmission timer expires, TCP doubles the retransmission timer. This exponential backoff mechanism is important to ensure that TCP slowdowns during very severe congestion periods. We use the ``tcpi_rto`` variable from ``TCP_INFO`` to track the evolution of the retransmission timer. This script is available from :download:`/exercises/packetdrill_scripts/rto.pkt`.