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In the figure above, the connection is considered to be established by the client once it has received the `SYN+ACK` segment, while the server considers the connection to be established upon reception of the `ACK` segment. The first data segment sent by the client (server) has its `sequence number` set to `x+1` (resp. `y+1`).
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the `TCP Header Length` (THL) or `Data Offset` field is a four bits field that indicates the size of the TCP header in 32 bit words. The maximum size of the TCP header is thus 64 bytes.
 
the `Optional header extension` is used to add optional information to the TCP header. Thanks to this header extension, it is possible to add new fields to the TCP header that were not planned in the original specification. This allowed TCP to evolve since the early eighties. The details of the TCP header extension are explained in sections :ref:`TCPOpen` and :ref:`TCPReliable`.
 
The rest of this section is organized as follows. We first explain the establishment and the release of a TCP connection, then we discuss the mechanisms that are used by TCP to provide a reliable bytestream service. We end the section with a discussion of network congestion and explain the mechanisms that TCP uses to avoid congestion collapse.
 
TCP connection establishment
 
A TCP connection is established by using a three-way handshake. The connection establishment phase uses the `sequence number`, the `acknowledgment number` and the `SYN` flag. When a TCP connection is established, the two communicating hosts negotiate the initial sequence number to be used in both directions of the connection. For this, each TCP entity maintains a 32 bits counter, which is supposed to be incremented by one at least every 4 microseconds and after each connection establishment [#ftcpclock]_. When a client host wants to open a TCP connection with a server host, it creates a TCP segment with :
 
the `SYN` flag set
 
the `sequence number` set to the current value of the 32 bits counter of the client host's TCP entity
 
Upon reception of this segment (which is often called a `SYN segment`), the server host replies with a segment containing :
 
the `sequence number` set to the current value of the 32 bits counter of the server host's TCP entity
 
the `ACK` flag set
 
the `acknowledgment number` set to the `sequence number` of the received `SYN` segment incremented by 1 :math:`\pmod{2^{32}}`. When a TCP entity sends a segment having `x+1` as acknowledgment number, this indicates that it has received all data up to and including sequence number `x` and that it is expecting data having sequence number `x+1`. As the `SYN` flag was set in a segment having sequence number `x`, this implies that setting the `SYN` flag in a segment consumes one sequence number.
 
This segment is often called a `SYN+ACK` segment. The acknowledgment confirms to the client that the server has correctly received the `SYN` segment. The `sequence number` of the `SYN+ACK` segment is used by the server host to verify that the `client` has received the segment. Upon reception of the `SYN+ACK` segment, the client host replies with a segment containing :
 
the `acknowledgment number` set to the `sequence number` of the received `SYN+ACK` segment incremented by 1 :math:`\pmod{2^{32}}`
 
At this point, the TCP connection is open and both the client and the server are allowed to send TCP segments containing data. This is illustrated in the figure below.
 
Establishment of a TCP connection
 
In the figure above, the connection is considered to be established by the client once it has received the `SYN+ACK` segment, while the server considers the connection to be established upon reception of the `ACK` segment. The first data segment sent by the client (server) has its `sequence number` set to `x+1` (resp. `y+1`).
 
Computing TCP's initial sequence number
 
In the original TCP specification :rfc:`793`, each TCP entity maintained a clock to compute the initial sequence number (:term:`ISN`) placed in the `SYN` and `SYN+ACK` segments. This made the ISN predictable and caused a security issue. The typical security problem was the following. Consider a server that trusts a host based on its IP address and allows the system administrator to log in from this host without giving a password [#frlogin]_. Consider now an attacker who knows this particular configuration and is able to send IP packets having the client's address as source. He can send fake TCP segments to the server, but does not receive the server's answers. If he can predict the `ISN` that is chosen by the server, he can send a fake `SYN` segment and shortly after the fake `ACK` segment confirming the reception of the `SYN+ACK` segment sent by the server. Once the TCP connection is open, he can use it to send any command to the server. To counter this attack, current TCP implementations add randomness to the `ISN`. One of the solutions, proposed in :rfc:`1948` is to compute the `ISN` as ::
 
where `M` is the current value of the TCP clock and `H` is a cryptographic hash function. `localhost` and `remotehost` (resp. `localport` and `remoteport` ) are the IP addresses (port numbers) of the local and remote host and `secret` is a random number only known by the server. This method allows the server to use different ISNs for different clients at the same time. `Measurements <http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/newtcp/>`_ performed with the first implementations of this technique showed that it was difficult to implement it correctly, but today's TCP implementation now generate good ISNs.
 
A server could, of course, refuse to open a TCP connection upon reception of a `SYN` segment. This refusal may be due to various reasons. There may be no server process that is listening on the destination port of the `SYN` segment. The server could always refuse connection establishments from this particular client (e.g. due to security reasons) or the server may not have enough resources to accept a new TCP connection at that time. In this case, the server would reply with a TCP segment having its `RST` flag set and containing the `sequence number` of the received `SYN` segment incremented by one as its `acknowledgment number`. This is illustrated in the figure below. We discuss the other usages of the TCP `RST` flag later (see :ref:`TCPRelease`).
 
TCP connection establishment rejected by peer
 
TCP connection establishment can be described as the four state Finite State Machine shown below. In this FSM, `!X` (resp. `?Y`) indicates the transmission of segment `X` (resp. reception of segment `Y`) during the corresponding transition. `Init` is the initial state.
 
A client host starts in the `Init` state. It then sends a `SYN` segment and enters the `SYN Sent` state where it waits for a `SYN+ACK` segment. Then, it replies with an `ACK` segment and enters the `Established` state where data can be exchanged. On the other hand, a server host starts in the `Init` state. When a server process starts to listen to a destination port, the underlying TCP entity creates a TCP control block and a queue to process incoming `SYN` segments. Upon reception of a `SYN` segment, the server's TCP entity replies with a `SYN+ACK` and enters the `SYN RCVD` state. It remains in this state until it receives an `ACK` segment that acknowledges its `SYN+ACK` segment, with this it then enters the `Established` state.
 
Apart from these two paths in the TCP connection establishment FSM, there is a third path that corresponds to the case when both the client and the server send a `SYN` segment to open a TCP connection [#ftcpboth]_. In this case, the client and the server send a `SYN` segment and enter the `SYN Sent` state. Upon reception of the `SYN` segment sent by the other host, they reply by sending a `SYN+ACK` segment and enter the `SYN RCVD` state. The `SYN+ACK` that arrives from the other host allows it to transition to the `Established` state. The figure below illustrates such a simultaneous establishment of a TCP connection.
 
Simultaneous establishment of a TCP connection
 
Denial of Service attacks
 
When a TCP entity opens a TCP connection, it creates a Transmission Control Block (:term:`TCB`). The TCB contains the entire state that is maintained by the TCP entity for each TCP connection. During connection establishment, the TCB contains the local IP address, the remote IP address, the local port number, the remote port number, the current local sequence number and the last sequence number received from the remote entity. Until the mid 1990s, TCP implementations had a limit on the number of TCP connections that could be in the `SYN RCVD` state at a given time. Many implementations set this limit to about 100 TCBs. This limit was considered sufficient even for heavily load http servers given the small delay between the reception of a `SYN` segment and the reception of the `ACK` segment that terminates the establishment of the TCP connection. When the limit of 100 TCBs in the `SYN Rcvd` state is reached, the TCP entity discards all received TCP `SYN` segments that do not correspond to an existing TCB.
 
This limit of 100 TCBs in the `SYN Rcvd` state was chosen to protect the TCP entity from the risk of overloading its memory with too many TCBs in the `SYN Rcvd` state. However, it was also the reason for a new type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack :rfc:`4987`. A DoS attack is defined as an attack where an attacker can render a resource unavailable in the network. For example, an attacker may cause a DoS attack on a 2 Mbps link used by a company by sending more than 2 Mbps of packets through this link. In this case, the DoS attack was more subtle. As a TCP entity discards all received `SYN` segments as soon as it has 100 TCBs in the `SYN Rcvd` state, an attacker simply had to send a few 100 `SYN` segments every second to a server and never reply to the received `SYN+ACK` segments. To avoid being caught, attackers were of course sending these `SYN` segments with a different address than their own IP address [#fspoofing]_. On most TCP implementations, once a TCB entered the `SYN Rcvd` state, it remained in this state for several seconds, waiting for a retransmission of the initial `SYN` segment. This attack was later called a `SYN flood` attack and the servers of the ISP named panix were among the first to `be affected <http://memex.org/meme2-12.html>`_ by this attack.
 
To avoid the `SYN flood` attacks, recent TCP implementations no longer enter the `SYN Rcvd` state upon reception of a `SYN segment`. Instead, they reply directly with a `SYN+ACK` segment and wait until the reception of a valid `ACK`. This implementation trick is only possible if the TCP implementation is able to verify that the received `ACK` segment acknowledges the `SYN+ACK` segment sent earlier without storing the initial sequence number of this `SYN+ACK` segment in a TCB. The solution to solve this problem, which is known as `SYN cookies <http://cr.yp.to/syncookies.html>`_ is to compute the 32 bits of the `ISN` as follows :
 
the high order bits contain the low order bits of a counter that is incremented slowly
 
the low order bits contain a hash value computed over the local and remote IP addresses and ports and a random secret only known to the server
 

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In the figure above, the connection is considered to be established by the client once it has received the `SYN+ACK` segment, while the server considers the connection to be established upon reception of the `ACK` segment. The first data segment sent by the client (server) has its `sequence number` set to `x+1` (resp. `y+1`).
4 years ago
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Source string location
../../protocols/tcp.rst:137
String age
4 years ago
Last updated
2 months ago
Source string age
4 years ago
Translation file
locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/protocols/tcp.po, string 44