Please Whitelist This Site?

I know everyone hates ads. But please understand that I am providing premium content for free that takes hundreds of hours of time to research and write. I don't want to go to a pay-only model like some sites, but when more and more people block ads, I end up working for free. And I have a family to support, just like you. :)

If you like The TCP/IP Guide, please consider the download version. It's priced very economically and you can read all of it in a convenient format without ads.

If you want to use this site for free, I'd be grateful if you could add the site to the whitelist for Adblock. To do so, just open the Adblock menu and select "Disable on tcpipguide.com". Or go to the Tools menu and select "Adblock Plus Preferences...". Then click "Add Filter..." at the bottom, and add this string: "@@||tcpipguide.com^$document". Then just click OK.

Thanks for your understanding!

Sincerely, Charles Kozierok
Author and Publisher, The TCP/IP Guide


NOTE: Using software to mass-download the site degrades the server and is prohibited.
If you want to read The TCP/IP Guide offline, please consider licensing it. Thank you.

The Book is Here... and Now On Sale!

Read offline with no ads or diagram watermarks!
The TCP/IP Guide

Custom Search







Table Of Contents  The TCP/IP Guide
 9  TCP/IP Lower-Layer (Interface, Internet and Transport) Protocols (OSI Layers 2, 3 and 4)
      9  TCP/IP Transport Layer Protocols
           9  Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
                9  TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

Previous Topic/Section
TCP Characteristics: How TCP Does What It Does
Previous Page
Pages in Current Topic/Section
1
Next Page
TCP Data Handling and Processing: Streams, Segments and Sequence Numbers
Next Topic/Section

TCP Fundamentals and General Operation

Many people have a difficult time really understanding how the Transmission Control Protocol works. (After spending dozens of hours writing almost 100 pages on the protocol, I am quite sympathetic.) I think a main reason for the difficulty in absorbing TCP is that too many descriptions of the protocol quickly jump from a brief introduction straight into the mind-boggling details of TCP's operation. The problem is that TCP has a very particular way of doing certain things. Its operation is built around a few very important fundamentals that it is essential to understand before the details of TCP operation will make much sense.

In this section I describe some of the key operating fundamentals of TCP. I begin with a discussion of how TCP handles data, and introduce the concepts of streams, segments and sequences. I then describe the very important TCP sliding window system, used for acknowledgment, reliability and data flow control. I discuss how TCP uses ports, and how connections are identified. I also describe the most important applications that use TCP and what ports they use for server applications.

Quick navigation to subsections and regular topics in this section



Previous Topic/Section
TCP Characteristics: How TCP Does What It Does
Previous Page
Pages in Current Topic/Section
1
Next Page
TCP Data Handling and Processing: Streams, Segments and Sequence Numbers
Next Topic/Section

If you find The TCP/IP Guide useful, please consider making a small Paypal donation to help the site, using one of the buttons below. You can also donate a custom amount using the far right button (not less than $1 please, or PayPal gets most/all of your money!) In lieu of a larger donation, you may wish to consider purchasing a download license of The TCP/IP Guide. Thanks for your support!
Donate $2
Donate $5
Donate $10
Donate $20
Donate $30
Donate: $



Home - Table Of Contents - Contact Us

The TCP/IP Guide (http://www.TCPIPGuide.com)
Version 3.0 - Version Date: September 20, 2005

© Copyright 2001-2005 Charles M. Kozierok. All Rights Reserved.
Not responsible for any loss resulting from the use of this site.