TCP - UDP - CONNECTION MANAGEMENT
- HEADER FORMAT
**Explain the connection Management by TCP & UDP Protocol in detail.
*Explain TCP and UDP Header formats in detail with neat diagram.
Transport Layer protocols
o The transport layer is represented by two protocols: TCP and UDP.
o The IP protocol in the network layer delivers a datagram from a
source host to the destination host.
o Nowadays, the operating system supports multiuser and
multiprocessing environments, an executing program is called a
process. When a host sends a message to other host means that
source process is sending a process to a destination process. The
transport layer protocols define some connections to individual ports
known as protocol ports.
o An IP protocol is a host-to-host protocol used to deliver a packet
from source host to the destination host while transport layer
protocols are port-to-port protocols that work on the top of the IP
protocols to deliver the packet from the originating port to the IP
services, and from IP services to the destination port.
o Each port is defined by a positive integer address, and it is of 16
bits.
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UDP
o UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol.
o UDP is a simple protocol and it provides nonsequenced transport
functionality.
o UDP is a connectionless protocol.
o This type of protocol is used when reliability and security are less
important than speed and size.
o UDP is an end-to-end transport level protocol that adds transport-
level addresses, checksum error control, and length information to
the data from the upper layer.
o The packet produced by the UDP protocol is known as a user
datagram.
User Datagram Format
The user datagram has a 16-byte header which is shown below:
Where,
o Source port address: It defines the address of the application
process that has delivered a message. The source port address is of
16 bits address.
o Destination port address: It defines the address of the
application process that will receive the message. The destination
port address is of a 16-bit address.
o Total length: It defines the total length of the user datagram in
bytes. It is a 16-bit field.
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o Checksum: The checksum is a 16-bit field which is used in error
detection.
Disadvantages of UDP protocol
o UDP provides basic functions needed for the end-to-end delivery of
a transmission.
o It does not provide any sequencing or reordering functions and does
not specify the damaged packet when reporting an error.
o UDP can discover that an error has occurred, but it does not specify
which packet has been lost as it does not contain an ID or
sequencing number of a particular data segment.
TCP
o TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol.
o It provides full transport layer services to applications.
o It is a connection-oriented protocol means the connection
established between both the ends of the transmission. For creating
the connection, TCP generates a virtual circuit between sender and
receiver for the duration of a transmission.
Features Of TCP protocol
o Stream data transfer: TCP protocol transfers the data in the form
of contiguous stream of bytes. TCP group the bytes in the form of
TCP segments and then passed it to the IP layer for transmission to
the destination. TCP itself segments the data and forward to the IP.
o Reliability: TCP assigns a sequence number to each byte
transmitted and expects a positive acknowledgement from the
receiving TCP. If ACK is not received within a timeout interval, then
the data is retransmitted to the destination.
The receiving TCP uses the sequence number to reassemble the
segments if they arrive out of order or to eliminate the duplicate
segments.
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o Flow Control: When receiving TCP sends an acknowledgement
back to the sender indicating the number the bytes it can receive
without overflowing its internal buffer. The number of bytes is sent
in ACK in the form of the highest sequence number that it can
receive without any problem. This mechanism is also referred to as
a window mechanism.
o Multiplexing: Multiplexing is a process of accepting the data from
different applications and forwarding to the different applications on
different computers. At the receiving end, the data is forwarded to
the correct application. This process is known as demultiplexing.
TCP transmits the packet to the correct application by using the
logical channels known as ports.
o Logical Connections: The combination of sockets, sequence
numbers, and window sizes, is called a logical connection. Each
connection is identified by the pair of sockets used by sending and
receiving processes.
o Full Duplex: TCP provides Full Duplex service, i.e., the data flow in
both the directions at the same time. To achieve Full Duplex service,
each TCP should have sending and receiving buffers so that the
segments can flow in both the directions. TCP is a connection-
oriented protocol. Suppose the process A wants to send and receive
the data from process B. The following steps occur:
o Establish a connection between two TCPs.
o Data is exchanged in both the directions.
o The Connection is terminated.
TCP Segment Format
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Where,
o Source port address: It is used to define the address of the
application program in a source computer. It is a 16-bit field.
o Destination port address: It is used to define the address of the
application program in a destination computer. It is a 16-bit field.
o Sequence number: A stream of data is divided into two or more
TCP segments. The 32-bit sequence number field represents the
position of the data in an original data stream.
o Acknowledgement number: A 32-field acknowledgement number
acknowledge the data from other communicating devices. If ACK
field is set to 1, then it specifies the sequence number that the
receiver is expecting to receive.
o Header Length (HLEN): It specifies the size of the TCP header in
32-bit words. The minimum size of the header is 5 words, and the
maximum size of the header is 15 words. Therefore, the maximum
size of the TCP header is 60 bytes, and the minimum size of the TCP
header is 20 bytes.
o Reserved: It is a six-bit field which is reserved for future use.
o Control bits: Each bit of a control field functions individually and
independently. A control bit defines the use of a segment or serves
as a validity check for other fields.
There are total six types of flags in control field:
o URG: The URG field indicates that the data in a segment is urgent.
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o ACK: When ACK field is set, then it validates the acknowledgement
number.
o PSH: The PSH field is used to inform the sender that higher
throughput is needed so if possible, data must be pushed with
higher throughput.
o RST: The reset bit is used to reset the TCP connection when there is
any confusion occurs in the sequence numbers.
o SYN: The SYN field is used to synchronize the sequence numbers in
three types of segments: connection request, connection
confirmation ( with the ACK bit set ), and confirmation
acknowledgement.
o FIN: The FIN field is used to inform the receiving TCP module that
the sender has finished sending data. It is used in connection
termination in three types of segments: termination request,
termination confirmation, and acknowledgement of termination
confirmation.
o Window Size: The window is a 16-bit field that defines the
size of the window.
o Checksum: The checksum is a 16-bit field used in error
detection.
o Urgent pointer: If URG flag is set to 1, then this 16-bit field is
an offset from the sequence number indicating that it is a last
urgent data byte.
o Options and padding: It defines the optional fields that
convey the additional information to the receiver.
Differences b/w TCP & UDP
Basis for TCP UDP
Comparison
Definition TCP establishes a UDP transmits the data
virtual circuit before directly to the destination
transmitting the data. computer without
verifying whether the
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receiver is ready to
receive or not.
Connection It is a Connection- It is a Connectionless
Type Oriented protocol protocol
Speed slow high
Reliability It is a reliable It is an unreliable
protocol. protocol.
Header size 20 bytes 8 bytes
acknowledgeme It waits for the It neither takes the
nt acknowledgement of acknowledgement, nor it
data and has the retransmits the damaged
ability to resend the frame.
lost packets.