Transmission Control Protocol - Revision history

Jnc: /* Development history */ A bit more about TCP-2.5

2025-01-28T10:03:24Z

‎Development history: A bit more about TCP-2.5

Jnc: Add 'Development history'

2025-01-24T14:46:07Z

Add 'Development history'

Larsbrinkhoff: Early documents discussing the Transmission Control Program.

2024-08-05T08:16:07Z

Early documents discussing the Transmission Control *Program*.

Jnc: /* See also */ link recent new history pages

2022-10-22T14:43:44Z

‎See also: link recent new history pages

Jnc: +ss

2018-10-26T14:43:25Z

+ss

Jnc: Avoid dab page

2018-10-26T13:11:56Z

Avoid dab page

Jnc: Mention connections

2018-10-26T12:11:29Z

Mention connections

Jnc: Created page with "The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' is the reliable byte stream protocol of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It runs on top of the Internet Protocol -..."

2018-06-14T01:22:22Z

Created page with "The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' is the reliable byte stream protocol of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It runs on top of the Internet Protocol -..."

New page

The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]].

It runs on top of the [[Internet Protocol]] - the [[internetworking layer]] in TCP/IP. That layer is unreliable - [[packet]]s carried by it may be delayed, damaged, duplicated, re-ordered, or lost. TCP therefore has to use a number of mechanisms to built a reliable stream out of the unreliable substrate.

To do that, it uses [[checksum]]s (to prevent and detect damaged data), [[sequence number]]s (each byte sent over the channel is individually numbered), [[acknowledgement]]s, [[timeout]]s (to look for missing acknowledgements), and [[re-transmission]]s (of data which was damaged, or never acknowledged, and thus was somehow lost).

A number of major applications (including [[HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.

[[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 The early development of TCP is poorly covered in recent histories; fortunately, between the specifications for early versions (available in the [[Internet Experiment Note]] (IEN) series), and the excellent meeting minutes of the [[TCP and Internet Meetings]] taken by [[Jon Postel]] (also available there), much of it can be re-created.
-In the beginning, there was only TCP - IP did not yet exist as a distinct protocol. The functionality that would later be provided by IP was included in the early versions of TCP.
+In the beginning, there was only TCP - IP did not yet exist as a distinct protocol. The functionality that would later be provided by IP was included in the early versions of TCP. (Note also that prior to the [[TCP and IP bake offs]], most testing was done from an implementation to ''itself'', so early implementations might in fact have been subtly different from each other.)
 Early versions were:
@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 | 2 || IEN-5 || March, 1977 || The last version before the split into TCP and IP started
 |-
-| 2.5 || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Not really a different protocol; apparently the existing header formats were retained, and various fields 'assigned' to TCP or IP (i.e. [[router]]s only looked at these latter ones)
+| 2.5 || Mentioned in IEN-67, -68 || Late 1977 || Not really a different protocol; apparently the existing TCP-2 header formats were retained, and various fields 'assigned' to TCP or IP (i.e. [[router]]s only looked at these latter ones)
 |-
 | 3 || IEN-21 || January, 1978 || The full split, and variable length addresses adopted

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' (usually '''TCP''') is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]]. It provides [[connection]]s, identified by a pair of [[Internet Protocol]] host [[address]]es and a 16-bit [[networking port|port]] number on each end, between pairs of [[host]]s.
+The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' (usually '''TCP''') is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]]. It provides bi-directional [[connection]]s, identified by a pair of [[Internet Protocol]] (IP) host [[address]]es, along with a 16-bit [[networking port|port]] number, at each end, between pairs of [[host]]s.
 It runs on top of the Internet Protocol - the [[internetworking layer]] in TCP/IP. That layer is unreliable - [[packet]]s carried by it may be delayed, damaged, duplicated, re-ordered, or lost. TCP therefore has to use a number of mechanisms to built a reliable stream out of the unreliable substrate.
@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 A number of major [[application]] protocols (including [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.
 ==See also==
 * [[TCP and IP bake offs]]
@@ Line 15: / Line 47: @@
 * [https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall06/cos561/papers/cerf74.pdf A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication]
-* [https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc675 RFC 675 - Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program]
+* [https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc675 RFC-675 - Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program]
+* [https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien5.pdf IEN-5 - TCP Version 2 Specification]
-{{semi-stub}}
+* [https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien21.pdf IEN-21 - TCP 3 Specification]
 [[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 * [[TCP and Internet Meetings]]
 * [[TCP and IP bake offs]]
 {{semi-stub}}
 [[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 A number of major [[application]] protocols (including [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.
 {{semi-stub}}
 [[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:43, 26 October 2018
Line 6:		Line 6:

	A number of major [[application]] protocols (including [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol\|HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.		A number of major [[application]] protocols (including [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol\|HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.
		+
		+	{{semi-stub}}

	[[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]		[[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:11, 26 October 2018
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]]. It provides [[connection]]s, identified by a pair of [[Internet Protocol]] host [[address]]es and a 16-bit [[port]] number on each end, between pairs of [[host]]s.	+	The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' (usually '''TCP''') is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]]. It provides [[connection]]s, identified by a pair of [[Internet Protocol]] host [[address]]es and a 16-bit [[networking port\|port]] number on each end, between pairs of [[host]]s.

	It runs on top of the Internet Protocol - the [[internetworking layer]] in TCP/IP. That layer is unreliable - [[packet]]s carried by it may be delayed, damaged, duplicated, re-ordered, or lost. TCP therefore has to use a number of mechanisms to built a reliable stream out of the unreliable substrate.		It runs on top of the Internet Protocol - the [[internetworking layer]] in TCP/IP. That layer is unreliable - [[packet]]s carried by it may be delayed, damaged, duplicated, re-ordered, or lost. TCP therefore has to use a number of mechanisms to built a reliable stream out of the unreliable substrate.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]].
+The '''Transmission Control Protocol‏‎''' is the [[reliable byte stream]] [[protocol]] of the [[TCP/IP]] [[protocol suite]]. It provides [[connection]]s, identified by a pair of [[Internet Protocol]] host [[address]]es and a 16-bit [[port]] number on each end, between pairs of [[host]]s.
-It runs on top of the [[Internet Protocol]] - the [[internetworking layer]] in TCP/IP. That layer is unreliable - [[packet]]s carried by it may be delayed, damaged, duplicated, re-ordered, or lost. TCP therefore has to use a number of mechanisms to built a reliable stream out of the unreliable substrate.
+It runs on top of the Internet Protocol - the [[internetworking layer]] in TCP/IP. That layer is unreliable - [[packet]]s carried by it may be delayed, damaged, duplicated, re-ordered, or lost. TCP therefore has to use a number of mechanisms to built a reliable stream out of the unreliable substrate.
 To do that, it uses [[checksum]]s (to prevent and detect damaged data), [[sequence number]]s (each byte sent over the channel is individually numbered), [[acknowledgement]]s, [[timeout]]s (to look for missing acknowledgements), and [[re-transmission]]s (of data which was damaged, or never acknowledged, and thus was somehow lost).
-A number of major applications (including [[HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.
+A number of major [[application]] protocols (including [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]], [[email]], etc) are built on top of TCP.
 [[Category: TCP/IP Protocols]]