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Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Specification
draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis-20

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9293.
Author Wesley Eddy
Last updated 2021-04-22 (Latest revision 2021-01-21)
Replaces draft-eddy-rfc793bis
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Send notices to Michael Scharf <michael.scharf@hs-esslingen.de>
draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis-20
Internet Engineering Task Force                             W. Eddy, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                               MTI Systems
Obsoletes: 793, 879, 2873, 6093, 6429,                  January 21, 2021
           6528, 6691 (if approved)
Updates: 5961, 1122 (if approved)
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: July 25, 2021

           Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Specification
                      draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis-20

Abstract

   This document specifies the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).  TCP
   is an important transport layer protocol in the Internet protocol
   stack, and has continuously evolved over decades of use and growth of
   the Internet.  Over this time, a number of changes have been made to
   TCP as it was specified in RFC 793, though these have only been
   documented in a piecemeal fashion.  This document collects and brings
   those changes together with the protocol specification from RFC 793.
   This document obsoletes RFC 793, as well as RFCs 879, 2873, 6093,
   6429, 6528, and 6691 that updated parts of RFC 793.  It updates RFC
   1122, and should be considered as a replacement for the portions of
   that document dealing with TCP requirements.  It also updates RFC
   5961 by adding a small clarification in reset handling while in the
   SYN-RECEIVED state.  The TCP header control bits from RFC 793 have
   also been updated based on RFC 3168.

   RFC EDITOR NOTE: If approved for publication as an RFC, this should
   be marked additionally as "STD: 7" and replace RFC 793 in that role.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 25, 2021.

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Table of Contents

   1.  Purpose and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.2.  Key TCP Concepts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   3.  Functional Specification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Header Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  TCP Terminology Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       3.2.1.  Key Connection State Variables  . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       3.2.2.  State Machine Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     3.3.  Sequence Numbers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     3.4.  Establishing a connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
     3.5.  Closing a Connection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
       3.5.1.  Half-Closed Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
     3.6.  Segmentation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
       3.6.1.  Maximum Segment Size Option . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
       3.6.2.  Path MTU Discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  37
       3.6.3.  Interfaces with Variable MTU Values . . . . . . . . .  37
       3.6.4.  Nagle Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  38
       3.6.5.  IPv6 Jumbograms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  38

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     3.7.  Data Communication  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  38
       3.7.1.  Retransmission Timeout  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  39
       3.7.2.  TCP Congestion Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  40
       3.7.3.  TCP Connection Failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  40
       3.7.4.  TCP Keep-Alives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  41
       3.7.5.  The Communication of Urgent Information . . . . . . .  42
       3.7.6.  Managing the Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43
     3.8.  Interfaces  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
       3.8.1.  User/TCP Interface  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
       3.8.2.  TCP/Lower-Level Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  57
     3.9.  Event Processing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  59
     3.10. Glossary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  84
   4.  Changes from RFC 793  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  89
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  94
   6.  Security and Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . .  95
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  96
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  97
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  97
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  99
   Appendix A.  Other Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
     A.1.  IP Security Compartment and Precedence  . . . . . . . . . 103
       A.1.1.  Precedence  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
       A.1.2.  MLS Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
     A.2.  Sequence Number Validation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
     A.3.  Nagle Modification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
     A.4.  Low Water Mark Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
   Appendix B.  TCP Requirement Summary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

1.  Purpose and Scope

   In 1981, RFC 793 [16] was released, documenting the Transmission
   Control Protocol (TCP), and replacing earlier specifications for TCP
   that had been published in the past.

   Since then, TCP has been widely implemented, and has been used as a
   transport protocol for numerous applications on the Internet.

   For several decades, RFC 793 plus a number of other documents have
   combined to serve as the core specification for TCP [48].  Over time,
   a number of errata have been filed against RFC 793, as well as
   deficiencies in security, performance, and many other aspects.  The
   number of enhancements has grown over time across many separate
   documents.  These were never accumulated together into a
   comprehensive update to the base specification.

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   The purpose of this document is to bring together all of the IETF
   Standards Track changes that have been made to the base TCP
   functional specification and unify them into an update of RFC 793.

   Some companion documents are referenced for important algorithms that
   are used by TCP (e.g. for congestion control), but have not been
   completely included in this document.  This is a conscious choice, as
   this base specification can be used with multiple additional
   algorithms that are developed and incorporated separately.  This
   document focuses on the common basis all TCP implementations must
   support in order to interoperate.  Since some additional TCP features
   have become quite complicated themselves (e.g. advanced loss recovery
   and congestion control), future companion documents may attempt to
   similarly bring these together.

   In addition to the protocol specification that describes the TCP
   segment format, generation, and processing rules that are to be
   implemented in code, RFC 793 and other updates also contain
   informative and descriptive text for readers to understand aspects of
   the protocol design and operation.  This document does not attempt to
   alter or update this informative text, and is focused only on
   updating the normative protocol specification.  This document
   preserves references to the documentation containing the important
   explanations and rationale, where appropriate.

   This document is intended to be useful both in checking existing TCP
   implementations for conformance purposes, as well as in writing new
   implementations.

2.  Introduction

   RFC 793 contains a discussion of the TCP design goals and provides
   examples of its operation, including examples of connection
   establishment, connection termination, packet retransmission to
   repair losses.

   This document describes the basic functionality expected in modern
   TCP implementations, and replaces the protocol specification in RFC
   793.  It does not replicate or attempt to update the introduction and
   philosophy content in Sections 1 and 2 of RFC 793.  Other documents
   are referenced to provide explanation of the theory of operation,
   rationale, and detailed discussion of design decisions.  This
   document only focuses on the normative behavior of the protocol.

   The "TCP Roadmap" [48] provides a more extensive guide to the RFCs
   that define TCP and describe various important algorithms.  The TCP
   Roadmap contains sections on strongly encouraged enhancements that
   improve performance and other aspects of TCP beyond the basic

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   operation specified in this document.  As one example, implementing
   congestion control (e.g. [34]) is a TCP requirement, but is a complex
   topic on its own, and not described in detail in this document, as
   there are many options and possibilities that do not impact basic
   interoperability.  Similarly, most TCP implementations today include
   the high-performance extensions in [46], but these are not strictly
   required or discussed in this document.  Multipath considerations for
   TCP are also specified separately in [54].

   A list of changes from RFC 793 is contained in Section 4.

2.1.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [4][13] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown
   here.

   Each use of RFC 2119 keywords in the document is individually labeled
   and referenced in Appendix B that summarizes implementation
   requirements.

   Sentences using "MUST" are labeled as "MUST-X" with X being a numeric
   identifier enabling the requirement to be located easily when
   referenced from Appendix B.

   Similarly, sentences using "SHOULD" are labeled with "SHLD-X", "MAY"
   with "MAY-X", and "RECOMMENDED" with "REC-X".

   For the purposes of this labeling, "SHOULD NOT" and "MUST NOT" are
   labeled the same as "SHOULD" and "MUST" instances.

2.2.  Key TCP Concepts

   TCP provides a reliable, in-order, byte-stream service to
   applications.

   The application byte-stream is conveyed over the network via TCP
   segments, with each TCP segment sent as an Internet Protocol (IP)
   datagram.

   TCP reliability consists of detecting packet losses (via sequence
   numbers) and errors (via per-segment checksums), as well as
   correction via retransmission.

   TCP supports unicast delivery of data.  Anycast applications exist
   that successfully use TCP without modifications, though there is some

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   risk of instability due to changes of lower-layer forwarding behavior
   [45].

   TCP is connection-oriented, though does not inherently include a
   liveness detection capability.

   Data flow is supported bidirectionally over TCP connections, though
   applications are free to send data only unidirectionally, if they so
   choose.

   TCP uses port numbers to identify application services and to
   multiplex distinct flows between hosts.

   A more detailed description of TCP features compared to other
   transport protocols can be found in Section 3.1 of [51].  Further
   description of the motivations for developing TCP and its role in the
   Internet protocol stack can be found in Section 2 of [16] and earlier
   versions of the TCP specification.

3.  Functional Specification

3.1.  Header Format

   TCP segments are sent as internet datagrams.  The Internet Protocol
   (IP) header carries several information fields, including the source
   and destination host addresses [1] [14].  A TCP header follows the IP
   headers, supplying information specific to the TCP protocol.  This
   division allows for the existence of host level protocols other than
   TCP.  In early development of the Internet suite of protocols, the IP
   header fields had been a part of TCP.

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       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |          Source Port          |       Destination Port        |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                        Sequence Number                        |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                    Acknowledgment Number                      |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |  Data |       |C|E|U|A|P|R|S|F|                               |
      | Offset| Rsrvd |W|C|R|C|S|S|Y|I|            Window             |
      |       |       |R|E|G|K|H|T|N|N|                               |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |           Checksum            |         Urgent Pointer        |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                    Options                    |    Padding    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                             Data                              |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

             Note that one tick mark represents one bit position.

                        Figure 1: TCP Header Format

   Each of the TCP header fields is described as follows:

   Source Port:  16 bits

     The source port number.

   Destination Port:  16 bits

     The destination port number.

   Sequence Number:  32 bits

     The sequence number of the first data octet in this segment (except
     when the SYN flag is set).  If SYN is set the sequence number is
     the initial sequence number (ISN) and the first data octet is
     ISN+1.

   Acknowledgment Number:  32 bits

     If the ACK control bit is set, this field contains the value of the
     next sequence number the sender of the segment is expecting to
     receive.  Once a connection is established, this is always sent.

   Data Offset:  4 bits

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     The number of 32 bit words in the TCP Header.  This indicates where
     the data begins.  The TCP header (even one including options) is an
     integral number of 32 bits long.

   Rsrvd - Reserved:  4 bits

     A set of control bits reserved for future use.  Must be zero in
     generated segments and must be ignored in received segments, if
     corresponding future features are unimplemented by the sending or
     receiving host.

     The control bits are also know as "flags".  Assignment is managed
     by IANA from the "TCP Header Flags" registry [56].

   Control Bits:  8 bits (from left to right) of currently assigned
   control bits:

       CWR: Congestion Window Reduced (see [9])
       ECE: ECN-Echo (see [9])
       URG: Urgent Pointer field significant
       ACK: Acknowledgment field significant
       PSH: Push Function (see the Send Call description in
       Section 3.8.1)
       RST: Reset the connection
       SYN: Synchronize sequence numbers
       FIN: No more data from sender

  Window:  16 bits

    The number of data octets beginning with the one indicated in the
    acknowledgment field that the sender of this segment is willing to
    accept.

    The window size MUST be treated as an unsigned number, or else large
    window sizes will appear like negative windows and TCP will not work
    (MUST-1).  It is RECOMMENDED that implementations will reserve
    32-bit fields for the send and receive window sizes in the
    connection record and do all window computations with 32 bits (REC-
    1).

  Checksum:  16 bits

    The checksum field is the 16 bit one's complement of the one's
    complement sum of all 16 bit words in the header and text.  The
    checksum computation needs to ensure the 16-bit alignment of the
    data being summed.  If a segment contains an odd number of header
    and text octets, alignment can be achieved by padding the last octet
    with zeros on its right to form a 16 bit word for checksum purposes.

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    The pad is not transmitted as part of the segment.  While computing
    the checksum, the checksum field itself is replaced with zeros.

    The checksum also covers a pseudo header (Figure 2) conceptually
    prefixed to the TCP header.  The pseudo header is 96 bits for IPv4
    and 320 bits for IPv6.  Including the pseudo header in the checksum
    gives the TCP connection protection against misrouted segments.
    This information is carried in IP headers and is transferred across
    the TCP/Network interface in the arguments or results of calls by
    the TCP implementation on the IP layer.

                   +--------+--------+--------+--------+
                   |           Source Address          |
                   +--------+--------+--------+--------+
                   |         Destination Address       |
                   +--------+--------+--------+--------+
                   |  zero  |  PTCL  |    TCP Length   |
                   +--------+--------+--------+--------+

                       Figure 2: IPv4 Pseudo Header

  Pseudo header components:

       Source Address: the IPv4 source address in network byte order

       Destination Address: the IPv4 destination address in network byte
       order

       zero: bits set to zero

       PTCL: the protocol number from the IP header

       TCP Length: the TCP header length plus the data length in octets
       (this is not an explicitly transmitted quantity, but is
       computed), and it does not count the 12 octets of the pseudo
       header.

    For IPv6, the pseudo header is defined in Section 8.1 of RFC 8200
    [14], and contains the IPv6 Source Address and Destination Address,
    an Upper Layer Packet Length (a 32-bit value otherwise equivalent to
    TCP Length in the IPv4 pseudo header), three bytes of zero-padding,
    and a Next Header value (differing from the IPv6 header value in the
    case of extension headers present in between IPv6 and TCP).

    The TCP checksum is never optional.  The sender MUST generate it
    (MUST-2) and the receiver MUST check it (MUST-3).

  Urgent Pointer:  16 bits

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    This field communicates the current value of the urgent pointer as a
    positive offset from the sequence number in this segment.  The
    urgent pointer points to the sequence number of the octet following
    the urgent data.  This field is only be interpreted in segments with
    the URG control bit set.

  Options:  variable

    Options may occupy space at the end of the TCP header and are a
    multiple of 8 bits in length.  All options are included in the
    checksum.  An option may begin on any octet boundary.  There are two
    cases for the format of an option:

       Case 1: A single octet of option-kind.

       Case 2: An octet of option-kind (Kind), an octet of option-
       length, and the actual option-data octets.

    The option-length counts the two octets of option-kind and option-
    length as well as the option-data octets.

    Note that the list of options may be shorter than the data offset
    field might imply.  The content of the header beyond the End-of-
    Option option must be header padding (i.e., zero).

    The list of all currently defined options is managed by IANA [55],
    and each option is defined in other RFCs, as indicated there.  That
    set includes experimental options that can be extended to support
    multiple concurrent usages [44].

    A given TCP implementation can support any currently defined
    options, but the following options MUST be supported (MUST-4 - note
    Maximum Segment Size option support is also part of MUST-19 in
    Section 3.6.2):

         Kind     Length    Meaning
         ----     ------    -------
          0         -       End of option list.
          1         -       No-Operation.
          2         4       Maximum Segment Size.

    A TCP implementation MUST be able to receive a TCP option in any
    segment (MUST-5).

    A TCP implementation MUST (MUST-6) ignore without error any TCP
    option it does not implement, assuming that the option has a length

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    field.  All TCP options except End of option list and No-Operation
    MUST have length fields, including all future options (MUST-68).
    TCP implementations MUST be prepared to handle an illegal option
    length (e.g., zero); a suggested procedure is to reset the
    connection and log the error cause (MUST-7).

    Note: There is ongoing work to extend the space available for TCP
    options, such as [60].

  Specific Option Definitions

       End of Option List

           +--------+
           |00000000|
           +--------+
            Kind=0

       This option code indicates the end of the option list.  This
       might not coincide with the end of the TCP header according to
       the Data Offset field.  This is used at the end of all options,
       not the end of each option, and need only be used if the end of
       the options would not otherwise coincide with the end of the TCP
       header.

       No-Operation

           +--------+
           |00000001|
           +--------+
            Kind=1

       This option code can be used between options, for example, to
       align the beginning of a subsequent option on a word boundary.
       There is no guarantee that senders will use this option, so
       receivers MUST be prepared to process options even if they do not
       begin on a word boundary (MUST-64).

       Maximum Segment Size (MSS)

           +--------+--------+---------+--------+
           |00000010|00000100|   max seg size   |
           +--------+--------+---------+--------+
            Kind=2   Length=4

       Maximum Segment Size Option Data: 16 bits

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       If this option is present, then it communicates the maximum
       receive segment size at the TCP endpoint that sends this segment.
       This value is limited by the IP reassembly limit.  This field may
       be sent in the initial connection request (i.e., in segments with
       the SYN control bit set) and MUST NOT be sent in other segments
       (MUST-65).  If this option is not used, any segment size is
       allowed.  A more complete description of this option is provided
       in Section 3.6.1.

       Other Common Options

       Additional RFCs define some other commonly used options that are
       recommended to implement for high performance, but not necessary
       for basic TCP interoperability.  These are the TCP Selective
       Acknowledgement (SACK) option [21][24], TCP Timestamp (TS) option
       [46], and TCP Window Scaling (WS) option [46].

       Experimental TCP Options

       Experimental TCP option values are defined in [27], and [44]
       describes the current recommended usage for these experimental
       values.

  Padding:  variable

    Padding is used to ensure that the TCP header ends and data begins
    on a 32 bit boundary.  The padding is composed of zeros.

3.2.  TCP Terminology Overview

   This section includes an overview of key terms needed to understand
   the detailed protocol operation in the rest of the document.  There
   is a traditional glossary of terms in Section 3.10.

3.2.1.  Key Connection State Variables

   Before we can discuss very much about the operation of the TCP
   implementation we need to introduce some detailed terminology.  The
   maintenance of a TCP connection requires the remembering of several
   variables.  We conceive of these variables being stored in a
   connection record called a Transmission Control Block or TCB.  Among
   the variables stored in the TCB are the local and remote IP addresses
   and port numbers, the IP security level and compartment of the
   connection (see Appendix A.1), pointers to the user's send and
   receive buffers, pointers to the retransmit queue and to the current
   segment.  In addition several variables relating to the send and
   receive sequence numbers are stored in the TCB.

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       Send Sequence Variables:

         SND.UNA - send unacknowledged
         SND.NXT - send next
         SND.WND - send window
         SND.UP  - send urgent pointer
         SND.WL1 - segment sequence number used for last window update
         SND.WL2 - segment acknowledgment number used for last window
                   update
         ISS     - initial send sequence number

       Receive Sequence Variables:

         RCV.NXT - receive next
         RCV.WND - receive window
         RCV.UP  - receive urgent pointer
         IRS     - initial receive sequence number

   The following diagrams may help to relate some of these variables to
   the sequence space.

                      1         2          3          4
                 ----------|----------|----------|----------
                        SND.UNA    SND.NXT    SND.UNA
                                             +SND.WND

           1 - old sequence numbers that have been acknowledged
           2 - sequence numbers of unacknowledged data
           3 - sequence numbers allowed for new data transmission
           4 - future sequence numbers that are not yet allowed

                       Figure 3: Send Sequence Space

   The send window is the portion of the sequence space labeled 3 in
   Figure 3.

                          1          2          3
                      ----------|----------|----------
                             RCV.NXT    RCV.NXT
                                       +RCV.WND

           1 - old sequence numbers that have been acknowledged
           2 - sequence numbers allowed for new reception
           3 - future sequence numbers that are not yet allowed

                     Figure 4: Receive Sequence Space

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   The receive window is the portion of the sequence space labeled 2 in
   Figure 4.

   There are also some variables used frequently in the discussion that
   take their values from the fields of the current segment.

   Current Segment Variables:

       SEG.SEQ - segment sequence number
       SEG.ACK - segment acknowledgment number
       SEG.LEN - segment length
       SEG.WND - segment window
       SEG.UP  - segment urgent pointer

3.2.2.  State Machine Overview

   A connection progresses through a series of states during its
   lifetime.  The states are: LISTEN, SYN-SENT, SYN-RECEIVED,
   ESTABLISHED, FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT, CLOSING, LAST-ACK,
   TIME-WAIT, and the fictional state CLOSED.  CLOSED is fictional
   because it represents the state when there is no TCB, and therefore,
   no connection.  Briefly the meanings of the states are:

      LISTEN - represents waiting for a connection request from any
      remote TCP peer and port.

      SYN-SENT - represents waiting for a matching connection request
      after having sent a connection request.

      SYN-RECEIVED - represents waiting for a confirming connection
      request acknowledgment after having both received and sent a
      connection request.

      ESTABLISHED - represents an open connection, data received can be
      delivered to the user.  The normal state for the data transfer
      phase of the connection.

      FIN-WAIT-1 - represents waiting for a connection termination
      request from the remote TCP peer, or an acknowledgment of the
      connection termination request previously sent.

      FIN-WAIT-2 - represents waiting for a connection termination
      request from the remote TCP peer.

      CLOSE-WAIT - represents waiting for a connection termination
      request from the local user.

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      CLOSING - represents waiting for a connection termination request
      acknowledgment from the remote TCP peer.

      LAST-ACK - represents waiting for an acknowledgment of the
      connection termination request previously sent to the remote TCP
      peer (this termination request sent to the remote TCP peer already
      included an acknowledgment of the termination request sent from
      the remote TCP peer).

      TIME-WAIT - represents waiting for enough time to pass to be sure
      the remote TCP peer received the acknowledgment of its connection
      termination request, and to avoid new connections being impacted
      by delayed segments from previous connections.

      CLOSED - represents no connection state at all.

   A TCP connection progresses from one state to another in response to
   events.  The events are the user calls, OPEN, SEND, RECEIVE, CLOSE,
   ABORT, and STATUS; the incoming segments, particularly those
   containing the SYN, ACK, RST and FIN flags; and timeouts.

   The state diagram in Figure 5 illustrates only state changes,
   together with the causing events and resulting actions, but addresses
   neither error conditions nor actions that are not connected with
   state changes.  In a later section, more detail is offered with
   respect to the reaction of the TCP implementation to events.  Some
   state names are abbreviated or hyphenated differently in the diagram
   from how they appear elsewhere in the document.

   NOTA BENE: This diagram is only a summary and must not be taken as
   the total specification.  Many details are not included.

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                               +---------+ ---------\      active OPEN
                               |  CLOSED |            \    -----------
                               +---------+<---------\   \   create TCB
                                 |     ^              \   \  snd SYN
                    passive OPEN |     |   CLOSE        \   \
                    ------------ |     | ----------       \   \
                     create TCB  |     | delete TCB         \   \
                                 V     |                      \   \
             rcv RST (note 1)  +---------+            CLOSE    |    \
          -------------------->|  LISTEN |          ---------- |     |
         /                     +---------+          delete TCB |     |
        /           rcv SYN      |     |     SEND              |     |
       /           -----------   |     |    -------            |     V
   +--------+      snd SYN,ACK  /       \   snd SYN          +--------+
   |        |<-----------------           ------------------>|        |
   |  SYN   |                    rcv SYN                     |  SYN   |
   |  RCVD  |<-----------------------------------------------|  SENT  |
   |        |                  snd SYN,ACK                   |        |
   |        |------------------           -------------------|        |
   +--------+   rcv ACK of SYN  \       /  rcv SYN,ACK       +--------+
      |         --------------   |     |   -----------
      |                x         |     |     snd ACK
      |                          V     V
      |  CLOSE                 +---------+
      | -------                |  ESTAB  |
      | snd FIN                +---------+
      |                 CLOSE    |     |    rcv FIN
      V                -------   |     |    -------
   +---------+         snd FIN  /       \   snd ACK         +---------+
   |  FIN    |<----------------          ------------------>|  CLOSE  |
   | WAIT-1  |------------------                            |   WAIT  |
   +---------+          rcv FIN  \                          +---------+
     | rcv ACK of FIN   -------   |                          CLOSE  |
     | --------------   snd ACK   |                         ------- |
     V        x                   V                         snd FIN V
   +---------+               +---------+                    +---------+
   |FINWAIT-2|               | CLOSING |                    | LAST-ACK|
   +---------+               +---------+                    +---------+
     |              rcv ACK of FIN |                 rcv ACK of FIN |
     |  rcv FIN     -------------- |    Timeout=2MSL -------------- |
     |  -------            x       V    ------------        x       V
      \ snd ACK              +---------+delete TCB          +---------+
        -------------------->|TIME-WAIT|------------------->| CLOSED  |
                             +---------+                    +---------+

                  Figure 5: TCP Connection State Diagram

   The following notes apply to Figure 5:

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      Note 1: The transition from SYN-RECEIVED to LISTEN on receiving a
      RST is conditional on having reached SYN-RECEIVED after a passive
      open.

      Note 2: An unshown transition exists from FIN-WAIT-1 to TIME-WAIT
      if a FIN is received and the local FIN is also acknowledged.

      Note 3: A RST can be sent from any state with a corresponding
      transition to TIME-WAIT (see [63] for rationale).  These
      transitions are not not explicitly shown, otherwise the diagram
      would become very difficult to read.  Similarly, receipt of a RST
      from any state results in a transition to LISTEN or CLOSED, though
      this is also omitted from the diagram for legibility.

3.3.  Sequence Numbers

   A fundamental notion in the design is that every octet of data sent
   over a TCP connection has a sequence number.  Since every octet is
   sequenced, each of them can be acknowledged.  The acknowledgment
   mechanism employed is cumulative so that an acknowledgment of
   sequence number X indicates that all octets up to but not including X
   have been received.  This mechanism allows for straight-forward
   duplicate detection in the presence of retransmission.  Numbering of
   octets within a segment is that the first data octet immediately
   following the header is the lowest numbered, and the following octets
   are numbered consecutively.

   It is essential to remember that the actual sequence number space is
   finite, though very large.  This space ranges from 0 to 2**32 - 1.
   Since the space is finite, all arithmetic dealing with sequence
   numbers must be performed modulo 2**32.  This unsigned arithmetic
   preserves the relationship of sequence numbers as they cycle from
   2**32 - 1 to 0 again.  There are some subtleties to computer modulo
   arithmetic, so great care should be taken in programming the
   comparison of such values.  The symbol "=<" means "less than or
   equal" (modulo 2**32).

   The typical kinds of sequence number comparisons that the TCP
   implementation must perform include:

      (a) Determining that an acknowledgment refers to some sequence
      number sent but not yet acknowledged.

      (b) Determining that all sequence numbers occupied by a segment
      have been acknowledged (e.g., to remove the segment from a
      retransmission queue).

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      (c) Determining that an incoming segment contains sequence numbers
      that are expected (i.e., that the segment "overlaps" the receive
      window).

   In response to sending data the TCP endpoint will receive
   acknowledgments.  The following comparisons are needed to process the
   acknowledgments.

      SND.UNA = oldest unacknowledged sequence number

      SND.NXT = next sequence number to be sent

      SEG.ACK = acknowledgment from the receiving TCP peer (next
      sequence number expected by the receiving TCP peer)

      SEG.SEQ = first sequence number of a segment

      SEG.LEN = the number of octets occupied by the data in the segment
      (counting SYN and FIN)

      SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 = last sequence number of a segment

   A new acknowledgment (called an "acceptable ack"), is one for which
   the inequality below holds:

      SND.UNA < SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT

   A segment on the retransmission queue is fully acknowledged if the
   sum of its sequence number and length is less or equal than the
   acknowledgment value in the incoming segment.

   When data is received the following comparisons are needed:

      RCV.NXT = next sequence number expected on an incoming segments,
      and is the left or lower edge of the receive window

      RCV.NXT+RCV.WND-1 = last sequence number expected on an incoming
      segment, and is the right or upper edge of the receive window

      SEG.SEQ = first sequence number occupied by the incoming segment

      SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 = last sequence number occupied by the incoming
      segment

   A segment is judged to occupy a portion of valid receive sequence
   space if

      RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

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   or

      RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

   The first part of this test checks to see if the beginning of the
   segment falls in the window, the second part of the test checks to
   see if the end of the segment falls in the window; if the segment
   passes either part of the test it contains data in the window.

   Actually, it is a little more complicated than this.  Due to zero
   windows and zero length segments, we have four cases for the
   acceptability of an incoming segment:

       Segment Receive  Test
       Length  Window
       ------- -------  -------------------------------------------

          0       0     SEG.SEQ = RCV.NXT

          0      >0     RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

         >0       0     not acceptable

         >0      >0     RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND
                     or RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

   Note that when the receive window is zero no segments should be
   acceptable except ACK segments.  Thus, it is possible for a TCP
   implementation to maintain a zero receive window while transmitting
   data and receiving ACKs.  A TCP receiver MUST process the RST and URG
   fields of all incoming segments, even when the receive window is zero
   (MUST-66).

   We have taken advantage of the numbering scheme to protect certain
   control information as well.  This is achieved by implicitly
   including some control flags in the sequence space so they can be
   retransmitted and acknowledged without confusion (i.e., one and only
   one copy of the control will be acted upon).  Control information is
   not physically carried in the segment data space.  Consequently, we
   must adopt rules for implicitly assigning sequence numbers to
   control.  The SYN and FIN are the only controls requiring this
   protection, and these controls are used only at connection opening
   and closing.  For sequence number purposes, the SYN is considered to
   occur before the first actual data octet of the segment in which it
   occurs, while the FIN is considered to occur after the last actual
   data octet in a segment in which it occurs.  The segment length
   (SEG.LEN) includes both data and sequence space occupying controls.
   When a SYN is present then SEG.SEQ is the sequence number of the SYN.

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   Initial Sequence Number Selection

   A connection is defined by a pair of sockets.  Connections can be
   reused.  New instances of a connection will be referred to as
   incarnations of the connection.  The problem that arises from this is
   -- "how does the TCP implementation identify duplicate segments from
   previous incarnations of the connection?"  This problem becomes
   apparent if the connection is being opened and closed in quick
   succession, or if the connection breaks with loss of memory and is
   then reestablished.  To support this, the TIME-WAIT state limits the
   rate of connection reuse, while the initial sequence number selection
   described below further protects against ambiguity about what
   incarnation of a connection an incoming packet corresponds to.

   To avoid confusion we must prevent segments from one incarnation of a
   connection from being used while the same sequence numbers may still
   be present in the network from an earlier incarnation.  We want to
   assure this, even if a TCP endpoint loses all knowledge of the
   sequence numbers it has been using.  When new connections are
   created, an initial sequence number (ISN) generator is employed that
   selects a new 32 bit ISN.  There are security issues that result if
   an off-path attacker is able to predict or guess ISN values.

   TCP Initial Sequence Numbers are generated from a number sequence
   that monotonically increases until it wraps, known loosely as a
   "clock".  This clock is a 32-bit counter that typically increments at
   least once every roughly 4 microseconds, although it is neither
   assumed to be realtime nor precise, and need not persist across
   reboots.  The clock component is intended to insure that with a
   Maximum Segment Lifetime (MSL), generated ISNs will be unique, since
   it cycles approximately every 4.55 hours, which is much longer than
   the MSL.

   A TCP implementation MUST use the above type of "clock" for clock-
   driven selection of initial sequence numbers (MUST-8), and SHOULD
   generate its Initial Sequence Numbers with the expression:

   ISN = M + F(localip, localport, remoteip, remoteport, secretkey)

   where M is the 4 microsecond timer, and F() is a pseudorandom
   function (PRF) of the connection's identifying parameters ("localip,
   localport, remoteip, remoteport") and a secret key ("secretkey")
   (SHLD-1).  F() MUST NOT be computable from the outside (MUST-9), or
   an attacker could still guess at sequence numbers from the ISN used
   for some other connection.  The PRF could be implemented as a
   cryptographic hash of the concatenation of the TCP connection
   parameters and some secret data.  For discussion of the selection of

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   a specific hash algorithm and management of the secret key data,
   please see Section 3 of [41].

   For each connection there is a send sequence number and a receive
   sequence number.  The initial send sequence number (ISS) is chosen by
   the data sending TCP peer, and the initial receive sequence number
   (IRS) is learned during the connection establishing procedure.

   For a connection to be established or initialized, the two TCP peers
   must synchronize on each other's initial sequence numbers.  This is
   done in an exchange of connection establishing segments carrying a
   control bit called "SYN" (for synchronize) and the initial sequence
   numbers.  As a shorthand, segments carrying the SYN bit are also
   called "SYNs".  Hence, the solution requires a suitable mechanism for
   picking an initial sequence number and a slightly involved handshake
   to exchange the ISNs.

   The synchronization requires each side to send its own initial
   sequence number and to receive a confirmation of it in acknowledgment
   from the remote TCP peer.  Each side must also receive the remote
   peer's initial sequence number and send a confirming acknowledgment.

       1) A --> B  SYN my sequence number is X
       2) A <-- B  ACK your sequence number is X
       3) A <-- B  SYN my sequence number is Y
       4) A --> B  ACK your sequence number is Y

   Because steps 2 and 3 can be combined in a single message this is
   called the three-way (or three message) handshake (3WHS).

   A 3WHS is necessary because sequence numbers are not tied to a global
   clock in the network, and TCP implementations may have different
   mechanisms for picking the ISNs.  The receiver of the first SYN has
   no way of knowing whether the segment was an old delayed one or not,
   unless it remembers the last sequence number used on the connection
   (which is not always possible), and so it must ask the sender to
   verify this SYN.  The three way handshake and the advantages of a
   clock-driven scheme are discussed in [62].

   Knowing When to Keep Quiet

   A theoretical problem exists where data could be corrupted due to
   confusion between old segments in the network and new ones after a
   host reboots, if the same port numbers and sequence space are reused.
   The "Quiet Time" concept discussed below addresses this and the
   discussion of it is included for situations where it might be
   relevant, although it is not felt to be necessary in most current
   implementations.  The problem was more relevant earlier in the

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   history of TCP.  In practical use on the Internet today, the error-
   prone conditions are sufficiently unlikely that it is felt safe to
   ignore.  Reasons why it is now negligible include: (a) ISS and
   ephemeral port randomization have reduced likelihood of reuse of port
   numbers and sequence numbers after reboots, (b) the effective MSL of
   the Internet has declined as links have become faster, and (c)
   reboots often taking longer than an MSL anyways.

   To be sure that a TCP implementation does not create a segment
   carrying a sequence number that may be duplicated by an old segment
   remaining in the network, the TCP endpoint must keep quiet for an MSL
   before assigning any sequence numbers upon starting up or recovering
   from a situation where memory of sequence numbers in use was lost.
   For this specification the MSL is taken to be 2 minutes.  This is an
   engineering choice, and may be changed if experience indicates it is
   desirable to do so.  Note that if a TCP endpoint is reinitialized in
   some sense, yet retains its memory of sequence numbers in use, then
   it need not wait at all; it must only be sure to use sequence numbers
   larger than those recently used.

   The TCP Quiet Time Concept

   Hosts that for any reason lose knowledge of the last sequence numbers
   transmitted on each active (i.e., not closed) connection shall delay
   emitting any TCP segments for at least the agreed MSL in the internet
   system that the host is a part of.  In the paragraphs below, an
   explanation for this specification is given.  TCP implementors may
   violate the "quiet time" restriction, but only at the risk of causing
   some old data to be accepted as new or new data rejected as old
   duplicated by some receivers in the internet system.

   TCP endpoints consume sequence number space each time a segment is
   formed and entered into the network output queue at a source host.
   The duplicate detection and sequencing algorithm in the TCP protocol
   relies on the unique binding of segment data to sequence space to the
   extent that sequence numbers will not cycle through all 2**32 values
   before the segment data bound to those sequence numbers has been
   delivered and acknowledged by the receiver and all duplicate copies
   of the segments have "drained" from the internet.  Without such an
   assumption, two distinct TCP segments could conceivably be assigned
   the same or overlapping sequence numbers, causing confusion at the
   receiver as to which data is new and which is old.  Remember that
   each segment is bound to as many consecutive sequence numbers as
   there are octets of data and SYN or FIN flags in the segment.

   Under normal conditions, TCP implementations keep track of the next
   sequence number to emit and the oldest awaiting acknowledgment so as
   to avoid mistakenly using a sequence number over before its first use

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   has been acknowledged.  This alone does not guarantee that old
   duplicate data is drained from the net, so the sequence space has
   been made very large to reduce the probability that a wandering
   duplicate will cause trouble upon arrival.  At 2 megabits/sec. it
   takes 4.5 hours to use up 2**32 octets of sequence space.  Since the
   maximum segment lifetime in the net is not likely to exceed a few
   tens of seconds, this is deemed ample protection for foreseeable
   nets, even if data rates escalate to l0's of megabits/sec.  At 100
   megabits/sec, the cycle time is 5.4 minutes, which may be a little
   short, but still within reason.

   The basic duplicate detection and sequencing algorithm in TCP can be
   defeated, however, if a source TCP endpoint does not have any memory
   of the sequence numbers it last used on a given connection.  For
   example, if the TCP implementation were to start all connections with
   sequence number 0, then upon the host rebooting, a TCP peer might re-
   form an earlier connection (possibly after half-open connection
   resolution) and emit packets with sequence numbers identical to or
   overlapping with packets still in the network, which were emitted on
   an earlier incarnation of the same connection.  In the absence of
   knowledge about the sequence numbers used on a particular connection,
   the TCP specification recommends that the source delay for MSL
   seconds before emitting segments on the connection, to allow time for
   segments from the earlier connection incarnation to drain from the
   system.

   Even hosts that can remember the time of day and used it to select
   initial sequence number values are not immune from this problem
   (i.e., even if time of day is used to select an initial sequence
   number for each new connection incarnation).

   Suppose, for example, that a connection is opened starting with
   sequence number S.  Suppose that this connection is not used much and
   that eventually the initial sequence number function (ISN(t)) takes
   on a value equal to the sequence number, say S1, of the last segment
   sent by this TCP endpoint on a particular connection.  Now suppose,
   at this instant, the host reboots and establishes a new incarnation
   of the connection.  The initial sequence number chosen is S1 = ISN(t)
   -- last used sequence number on old incarnation of connection!  If
   the recovery occurs quickly enough, any old duplicates in the net
   bearing sequence numbers in the neighborhood of S1 may arrive and be
   treated as new packets by the receiver of the new incarnation of the
   connection.

   The problem is that the recovering host may not know for how long it
   was down between rebooting nor does it know whether there are still
   old duplicates in the system from earlier connection incarnations.

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   One way to deal with this problem is to deliberately delay emitting
   segments for one MSL after recovery from a reboot - this is the
   "quiet time" specification.  Hosts that prefer to avoid waiting are
   willing to risk possible confusion of old and new packets at a given
   destination may choose not to wait for the "quiet time".
   Implementors may provide TCP users with the ability to select on a
   connection by connection basis whether to wait after a reboot, or may
   informally implement the "quiet time" for all connections.
   Obviously, even where a user selects to "wait," this is not necessary
   after the host has been "up" for at least MSL seconds.

   To summarize: every segment emitted occupies one or more sequence
   numbers in the sequence space, the numbers occupied by a segment are
   "busy" or "in use" until MSL seconds have passed, upon rebooting a
   block of space-time is occupied by the octets and SYN or FIN flags of
   the last emitted segment, if a new connection is started too soon and
   uses any of the sequence numbers in the space-time footprint of the
   last segment of the previous connection incarnation, there is a
   potential sequence number overlap area that could cause confusion at
   the receiver.

3.4.  Establishing a connection

   The "three-way handshake" is the procedure used to establish a
   connection.  This procedure normally is initiated by one TCP peer and
   responded to by another TCP peer.  The procedure also works if two
   TCP peers simultaneously initiate the procedure.  When simultaneous
   open occurs, each TCP peer receives a "SYN" segment that carries no
   acknowledgment after it has sent a "SYN".  Of course, the arrival of
   an old duplicate "SYN" segment can potentially make it appear, to the
   recipient, that a simultaneous connection initiation is in progress.
   Proper use of "reset" segments can disambiguate these cases.

   Several examples of connection initiation follow.  Although these
   examples do not show connection synchronization using data-carrying
   segments, this is perfectly legitimate, so long as the receiving TCP
   endpoint doesn't deliver the data to the user until it is clear the
   data is valid (e.g., the data is buffered at the receiver until the
   connection reaches the ESTABLISHED state, given that the three-way
   handshake reduces the possibility of false connections).  It is the
   implementation of a trade-off between memory and messages to provide
   information for this checking.

   The simplest 3WHS is shown in Figure 6.  The figures should be
   interpreted in the following way.  Each line is numbered for
   reference purposes.  Right arrows (-->) indicate departure of a TCP
   segment from TCP peer A to TCP peer B, or arrival of a segment at B
   from A.  Left arrows (<--), indicate the reverse.  Ellipsis (...)

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   indicates a segment that is still in the network (delayed).  Comments
   appear in parentheses.  TCP connection states represent the state
   AFTER the departure or arrival of the segment (whose contents are
   shown in the center of each line).  Segment contents are shown in
   abbreviated form, with sequence number, control flags, and ACK field.
   Other fields such as window, addresses, lengths, and text have been
   left out in the interest of clarity.

       TCP Peer A                                           TCP Peer B

   1.  CLOSED                                               LISTEN

   2.  SYN-SENT    --> <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>               --> SYN-RECEIVED

   3.  ESTABLISHED <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=101><CTL=SYN,ACK>  <-- SYN-RECEIVED

   4.  ESTABLISHED --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>       --> ESTABLISHED

   5.  ESTABLISHED --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK><DATA> --> ESTABLISHED

      Figure 6: Basic 3-Way Handshake for Connection Synchronization

   In line 2 of Figure 6, TCP Peer A begins by sending a SYN segment
   indicating that it will use sequence numbers starting with sequence
   number 100.  In line 3, TCP Peer B sends a SYN and acknowledges the
   SYN it received from TCP Peer A.  Note that the acknowledgment field
   indicates TCP Peer B is now expecting to hear sequence 101,
   acknowledging the SYN that occupied sequence 100.

   At line 4, TCP Peer A responds with an empty segment containing an
   ACK for TCP Peer B's SYN; and in line 5, TCP Peer A sends some data.
   Note that the sequence number of the segment in line 5 is the same as
   in line 4 because the ACK does not occupy sequence number space (if
   it did, we would wind up ACKing ACKs!).

   Simultaneous initiation is only slightly more complex, as is shown in
   Figure 7.  Each TCP peer's connection state cycles from CLOSED to
   SYN-SENT to SYN-RECEIVED to ESTABLISHED.

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       TCP Peer A                                       TCP Peer B

   1.  CLOSED                                           CLOSED

   2.  SYN-SENT     --> <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>              ...

   3.  SYN-RECEIVED <-- <SEQ=300><CTL=SYN>              <-- SYN-SENT

   4.               ... <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>              --> SYN-RECEIVED

   5.  SYN-RECEIVED --> <SEQ=100><ACK=301><CTL=SYN,ACK> ...

   6.  ESTABLISHED  <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=101><CTL=SYN,ACK> <-- SYN-RECEIVED

   7.               ... <SEQ=100><ACK=301><CTL=SYN,ACK> --> ESTABLISHED

             Figure 7: Simultaneous Connection Synchronization

   A TCP implementation MUST support simultaneous open attempts (MUST-
   10).

   Note that a TCP implementation MUST keep track of whether a
   connection has reached SYN-RECEIVED state as the result of a passive
   OPEN or an active OPEN (MUST-11).

   The principal reason for the three-way handshake is to prevent old
   duplicate connection initiations from causing confusion.  To deal
   with this, a special control message, reset, is specified.  If the
   receiving TCP peer is in a non-synchronized state (i.e., SYN-SENT,
   SYN-RECEIVED), it returns to LISTEN on receiving an acceptable reset.
   If the TCP peer is in one of the synchronized states (ESTABLISHED,
   FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT, CLOSING, LAST-ACK, TIME-WAIT), it
   aborts the connection and informs its user.  We discuss this latter
   case under "half-open" connections below.

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       TCP Peer A                                           TCP Peer B

   1.  CLOSED                                               LISTEN

   2.  SYN-SENT    --> <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>               ...

   3.  (duplicate) ... <SEQ=90><CTL=SYN>               --> SYN-RECEIVED

   4.  SYN-SENT    <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=91><CTL=SYN,ACK>  <-- SYN-RECEIVED

   5.  SYN-SENT    --> <SEQ=91><CTL=RST>               --> LISTEN

   6.              ... <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>               --> SYN-RECEIVED

   7.  ESTABLISHED <-- <SEQ=400><ACK=101><CTL=SYN,ACK>  <-- SYN-RECEIVED

   8.  ESTABLISHED --> <SEQ=101><ACK=401><CTL=ACK>      --> ESTABLISHED

                 Figure 8: Recovery from Old Duplicate SYN

   As a simple example of recovery from old duplicates, consider
   Figure 8.  At line 3, an old duplicate SYN arrives at TCP Peer B.
   TCP Peer B cannot tell that this is an old duplicate, so it responds
   normally (line 4).  TCP Peer A detects that the ACK field is
   incorrect and returns a RST (reset) with its SEQ field selected to
   make the segment believable.  TCP Peer B, on receiving the RST,
   returns to the LISTEN state.  When the original SYN finally arrives
   at line 6, the synchronization proceeds normally.  If the SYN at line
   6 had arrived before the RST, a more complex exchange might have
   occurred with RST's sent in both directions.

   Half-Open Connections and Other Anomalies

   An established connection is said to be "half-open" if one of the TCP
   peers has closed or aborted the connection at its end without the
   knowledge of the other, or if the two ends of the connection have
   become desynchronized owing to a failure or reboot that resulted in
   loss of memory.  Such connections will automatically become reset if
   an attempt is made to send data in either direction.  However, half-
   open connections are expected to be unusual.

   If at site A the connection no longer exists, then an attempt by the
   user at site B to send any data on it will result in the site B TCP
   endpoint receiving a reset control message.  Such a message indicates
   to the site B TCP endpoint that something is wrong, and it is
   expected to abort the connection.

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   Assume that two user processes A and B are communicating with one
   another when a failure or reboot occurs causing loss of memory to A's
   TCP implementation.  Depending on the operating system supporting A's
   TCP implementation, it is likely that some error recovery mechanism
   exists.  When the TCP endpoint is up again, A is likely to start
   again from the beginning or from a recovery point.  As a result, A
   will probably try to OPEN the connection again or try to SEND on the
   connection it believes open.  In the latter case, it receives the
   error message "connection not open" from the local (A's) TCP
   implementation.  In an attempt to establish the connection, A's TCP
   implementation will send a segment containing SYN.  This scenario
   leads to the example shown in Figure 9.  After TCP Peer A reboots,
   the user attempts to re-open the connection.  TCP Peer B, in the
   meantime, thinks the connection is open.

         TCP Peer A                                      TCP Peer B

     1.  (REBOOT)                              (send 300,receive 100)

     2.  CLOSED                                           ESTABLISHED

     3.  SYN-SENT --> <SEQ=400><CTL=SYN>              --> (??)

     4.  (!!)     <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=100><CTL=ACK>     <-- ESTABLISHED

     5.  SYN-SENT --> <SEQ=100><CTL=RST>              --> (Abort!!)

     6.  SYN-SENT                                         CLOSED

     7.  SYN-SENT --> <SEQ=400><CTL=SYN>              -->

                 Figure 9: Half-Open Connection Discovery

   When the SYN arrives at line 3, TCP Peer B, being in a synchronized
   state, and the incoming segment outside the window, responds with an
   acknowledgment indicating what sequence it next expects to hear (ACK
   100).  TCP Peer A sees that this segment does not acknowledge
   anything it sent and, being unsynchronized, sends a reset (RST)
   because it has detected a half-open connection.  TCP Peer B aborts at
   line 5.  TCP Peer A will continue to try to establish the connection;
   the problem is now reduced to the basic 3-way handshake of Figure 6.

   An interesting alternative case occurs when TCP Peer A reboots and
   TCP Peer B tries to send data on what it thinks is a synchronized
   connection.  This is illustrated in Figure 10.  In this case, the
   data arriving at TCP Peer A from TCP Peer B (line 2) is unacceptable
   because no such connection exists, so TCP Peer A sends a RST.  The

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   RST is acceptable so TCP Peer B processes it and aborts the
   connection.

         TCP Peer A                                         TCP Peer B

   1.  (REBOOT)                                  (send 300,receive 100)

   2.  (??)    <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=100><DATA=10><CTL=ACK> <-- ESTABLISHED

   3.          --> <SEQ=100><CTL=RST>                   --> (ABORT!!)

       Figure 10: Active Side Causes Half-Open Connection Discovery

   In Figure 11, two TCP Peers A and B with passive connections waiting
   for SYN are depicted.  An old duplicate arriving at TCP Peer B (line
   2) stirs B into action.  A SYN-ACK is returned (line 3) and causes
   TCP A to generate a RST (the ACK in line 3 is not acceptable).  TCP
   Peer B accepts the reset and returns to its passive LISTEN state.

       TCP Peer A                                    TCP Peer B

   1.  LISTEN                                        LISTEN

   2.       ... <SEQ=Z><CTL=SYN>                -->  SYN-RECEIVED

   3.  (??) <-- <SEQ=X><ACK=Z+1><CTL=SYN,ACK>   <--  SYN-RECEIVED

   4.       --> <SEQ=Z+1><CTL=RST>              -->  (return to LISTEN!)

   5.  LISTEN                                        LISTEN

   Figure 11: Old Duplicate SYN Initiates a Reset on two Passive Sockets

   A variety of other cases are possible, all of which are accounted for
   by the following rules for RST generation and processing.

   Reset Generation

   A TCP user or application can issue a reset on a connection at any
   time, though reset events are also generated by the protocol itself
   when various error conditions occur, as described below.  The side of
   a connection issuing a reset should enter the TIME-WAIT state, as
   this generally helps to reduce the load on busy servers for reasons
   described in [63].

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   As a general rule, reset (RST) is sent whenever a segment arrives
   that apparently is not intended for the current connection.  A reset
   must not be sent if it is not clear that this is the case.

   There are three groups of states:

      1.  If the connection does not exist (CLOSED) then a reset is sent
      in response to any incoming segment except another reset.  A SYN
      segment that does not match an existing connection is rejected by
      this means.

      If the incoming segment has the ACK bit set, the reset takes its
      sequence number from the ACK field of the segment, otherwise the
      reset has sequence number zero and the ACK field is set to the sum
      of the sequence number and segment length of the incoming segment.
      The connection remains in the CLOSED state.

      2.  If the connection is in any non-synchronized state (LISTEN,
      SYN-SENT, SYN-RECEIVED), and the incoming segment acknowledges
      something not yet sent (the segment carries an unacceptable ACK),
      or if an incoming segment has a security level or compartment that
      does not exactly match the level and compartment requested for the
      connection, a reset is sent.

      If the incoming segment has an ACK field, the reset takes its
      sequence number from the ACK field of the segment, otherwise the
      reset has sequence number zero and the ACK field is set to the sum
      of the sequence number and segment length of the incoming segment.
      The connection remains in the same state.

      3.  If the connection is in a synchronized state (ESTABLISHED,
      FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT, CLOSING, LAST-ACK, TIME-WAIT),
      any unacceptable segment (out of window sequence number or
      unacceptable acknowledgment number) must be responded to with an
      empty acknowledgment segment (without any user data) containing
      the current send-sequence number and an acknowledgment indicating
      the next sequence number expected to be received, and the
      connection remains in the same state.

      If an incoming segment has a security level, or compartment that
      does not exactly match the level and compartment requested for the
      connection, a reset is sent and the connection goes to the CLOSED
      state.  The reset takes its sequence number from the ACK field of
      the incoming segment.

   Reset Processing

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   In all states except SYN-SENT, all reset (RST) segments are validated
   by checking their SEQ-fields.  A reset is valid if its sequence
   number is in the window.  In the SYN-SENT state (a RST received in
   response to an initial SYN), the RST is acceptable if the ACK field
   acknowledges the SYN.

   The receiver of a RST first validates it, then changes state.  If the
   receiver was in the LISTEN state, it ignores it.  If the receiver was
   in SYN-RECEIVED state and had previously been in the LISTEN state,
   then the receiver returns to the LISTEN state, otherwise the receiver
   aborts the connection and goes to the CLOSED state.  If the receiver
   was in any other state, it aborts the connection and advises the user
   and goes to the CLOSED state.

   TCP implementations SHOULD allow a received RST segment to include
   data (SHLD-2).

3.5.  Closing a Connection

   CLOSE is an operation meaning "I have no more data to send."  The
   notion of closing a full-duplex connection is subject to ambiguous
   interpretation, of course, since it may not be obvious how to treat
   the receiving side of the connection.  We have chosen to treat CLOSE
   in a simplex fashion.  The user who CLOSEs may continue to RECEIVE
   until the TCP receiver is told that the remote peer has CLOSED also.
   Thus, a program could initiate several SENDs followed by a CLOSE, and
   then continue to RECEIVE until signaled that a RECEIVE failed because
   the remote peer has CLOSED.  The TCP implementation will signal a
   user, even if no RECEIVEs are outstanding, that the remote peer has
   closed, so the user can terminate his side gracefully.  A TCP
   implementation will reliably deliver all buffers SENT before the
   connection was CLOSED so a user who expects no data in return need
   only wait to hear the connection was CLOSED successfully to know that
   all their data was received at the destination TCP endpoint.  Users
   must keep reading connections they close for sending until the TCP
   implementation indicates there is no more data.

   There are essentially three cases:

      1) The user initiates by telling the TCP implementation to CLOSE
      the connection (TCP Peer A in Figure 12).

      2) The remote TCP endpoint initiates by sending a FIN control
      signal (TCP Peer B in Figure 12).

      3) Both users CLOSE simultaneously (Figure 13).

   Case 1:  Local user initiates the close

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      In this case, a FIN segment can be constructed and placed on the
      outgoing segment queue.  No further SENDs from the user will be
      accepted by the TCP implementation, and it enters the FIN-WAIT-1
      state.  RECEIVEs are allowed in this state.  All segments
      preceding and including FIN will be retransmitted until
      acknowledged.  When the other TCP peer has both acknowledged the
      FIN and sent a FIN of its own, the first TCP peer can ACK this
      FIN.  Note that a TCP endpoint receiving a FIN will ACK but not
      send its own FIN until its user has CLOSED the connection also.

   Case 2:  TCP endpoint receives a FIN from the network

      If an unsolicited FIN arrives from the network, the receiving TCP
      endpoint can ACK it and tell the user that the connection is
      closing.  The user will respond with a CLOSE, upon which the TCP
      endpoint can send a FIN to the other TCP peer after sending any
      remaining data.  The TCP endpoint then waits until its own FIN is
      acknowledged whereupon it deletes the connection.  If an ACK is
      not forthcoming, after the user timeout the connection is aborted
      and the user is told.

   Case 3:  Both users close simultaneously

      A simultaneous CLOSE by users at both ends of a connection causes
      FIN segments to be exchanged (Figure 13).  When all segments
      preceding the FINs have been processed and acknowledged, each TCP
      peer can ACK the FIN it has received.  Both will, upon receiving
      these ACKs, delete the connection.

       TCP Peer A                                           TCP Peer B

   1.  ESTABLISHED                                          ESTABLISHED

   2.  (Close)
       FIN-WAIT-1  --> <SEQ=100><ACK=300><CTL=FIN,ACK>  --> CLOSE-WAIT

   3.  FIN-WAIT-2  <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=101><CTL=ACK>      <-- CLOSE-WAIT

   4.                                                       (Close)
       TIME-WAIT   <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=101><CTL=FIN,ACK>  <-- LAST-ACK

   5.  TIME-WAIT   --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>      --> CLOSED

   6.  (2 MSL)
       CLOSED

                     Figure 12: Normal Close Sequence

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       TCP Peer A                                           TCP Peer B

   1.  ESTABLISHED                                          ESTABLISHED

   2.  (Close)                                              (Close)
       FIN-WAIT-1  --> <SEQ=100><ACK=300><CTL=FIN,ACK>  ... FIN-WAIT-1
                   <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=100><CTL=FIN,ACK>  <--
                   ... <SEQ=100><ACK=300><CTL=FIN,ACK>  -->

   3.  CLOSING     --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>      ... CLOSING
                   <-- <SEQ=301><ACK=101><CTL=ACK>      <--
                   ... <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>      -->

   4.  TIME-WAIT                                            TIME-WAIT
       (2 MSL)                                              (2 MSL)
       CLOSED                                               CLOSED

                  Figure 13: Simultaneous Close Sequence

   A TCP connection may terminate in two ways: (1) the normal TCP close
   sequence using a FIN handshake (Figure 12), and (2) an "abort" in
   which one or more RST segments are sent and the connection state is
   immediately discarded.  If the local TCP connection is closed by the
   remote side due to a FIN or RST received from the remote side, then
   the local application MUST be informed whether it closed normally or
   was aborted (MUST-12).

3.5.1.  Half-Closed Connections

   The normal TCP close sequence delivers buffered data reliably in both
   directions.  Since the two directions of a TCP connection are closed
   independently, it is possible for a connection to be "half closed,"
   i.e., closed in only one direction, and a host is permitted to
   continue sending data in the open direction on a half-closed
   connection.

   A host MAY implement a "half-duplex" TCP close sequence, so that an
   application that has called CLOSE cannot continue to read data from
   the connection (MAY-1).  If such a host issues a CLOSE call while
   received data is still pending in the TCP connection, or if new data
   is received after CLOSE is called, its TCP implementation SHOULD send
   a RST to show that data was lost (SHLD-3).  See [22] section 2.17 for
   discussion.

   When a connection is closed actively, it MUST linger in the TIME-WAIT
   state for a time 2xMSL (Maximum Segment Lifetime) (MUST-13).
   However, it MAY accept a new SYN from the remote TCP endpoint to
   reopen the connection directly from TIME-WAIT state (MAY-2), if it:

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      (1) assigns its initial sequence number for the new connection to
      be larger than the largest sequence number it used on the previous
      connection incarnation, and

      (2) returns to TIME-WAIT state if the SYN turns out to be an old
      duplicate.

   When the TCP Timestamp options are available, an improved algorithm
   is described in [39] in order to support higher connection
   establishment rates.  This algorithm for reducing TIME-WAIT is a Best
   Current Practice that SHOULD be implemented, since timestamp options
   are commonly used, and using them to reduce TIME-WAIT provides
   benefits for busy Internet servers (SHLD-4).

3.6.  Segmentation

   The term "segmentation" refers to the activity TCP performs when
   ingesting a stream of bytes from a sending application and
   packetizing that stream of bytes into TCP segments.  Individual TCP
   segments often do not correspond one-for-one to individual send (or
   socket write) calls from the application.  Applications may perform
   writes at the granularity of messages in the upper layer protocol,
   but TCP guarantees no boundary coherence between the TCP segments
   sent and received versus user application data read or write buffer
   boundaries.  In some specific protocols, such as Remote Direct Memory
   Access (RDMA) using Direct Data Placement (DDP) and Marker PDU
   Aligned Framing (MPA) [31], there are performance optimizations
   possible when the relation between TCP segments and application data
   units can be controlled, and MPA includes a specific mechanism for
   detecting and verifying this relationship between TCP segments and
   application message data structures, but this is specific to
   applications like RDMA.  In general, multiple goals influence the
   sizing of TCP segments created by a TCP implementation.

   Goals driving the sending of larger segments include:

   o  Reducing the number of packets in flight within the network.

   o  Increasing processing efficiency and potential performance by
      enabling a smaller number of interrupts and inter-layer
      interactions.

   o  Limiting the overhead of TCP headers.

   Note that the performance benefits of sending larger segments may
   decrease as the size increases, and there may be boundaries where
   advantages are reversed.  For instance, on some implementation
   architectures, 1025 bytes within a segment could lead to worse

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   performance than 1024 bytes, due purely to data alignment on copy
   operations.

   Goals driving the sending of smaller segments include:

   o  Avoiding sending a TCP segment that would result in an IP datagram
      larger than the smallest MTU along an IP network path, because
      this results in either packet loss or packet fragmentation.
      Making matters worse, some firewalls or middleboxes may drop
      fragmented packets or ICMP messages related to fragmentation.

   o  Preventing delays to the application data stream, especially when
      TCP is waiting on the application to generate more data, or when
      the application is waiting on an event or input from its peer in
      order to generate more data.

   o  Enabling "fate sharing" between TCP segments and lower-layer data
      units (e.g. below IP, for links with cell or frame sizes smaller
      than the IP MTU).

   Towards meeting these competing sets of goals, TCP includes several
   mechanisms, including the Maximum Segment Size option, Path MTU
   Discovery, the Nagle algorithm, and support for IPv6 Jumbograms, as
   discussed in the following subsections.

3.6.1.  Maximum Segment Size Option

   TCP endpoints MUST implement both sending and receiving the MSS
   option (MUST-14).

   TCP implementations SHOULD send an MSS option in every SYN segment
   when its receive MSS differs from the default 536 for IPv4 or 1220
   for IPv6 (SHLD-5), and MAY send it always (MAY-3).

   If an MSS option is not received at connection setup, TCP
   implementations MUST assume a default send MSS of 536 (576-40) for
   IPv4 or 1220 (1280 - 60) for IPv6 (MUST-15).

   The maximum size of a segment that TCP endpoint really sends, the
   "effective send MSS," MUST be the smaller (MUST-16) of the send MSS
   (that reflects the available reassembly buffer size at the remote
   host, the EMTU_R [18]) and the largest transmission size permitted by
   the IP layer (EMTU_S [18]):

       Eff.snd.MSS =

           min(SendMSS+20, MMS_S) - TCPhdrsize - IPoptionsize

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   where:

   o  SendMSS is the MSS value received from the remote host, or the
      default 536 for IPv4 or 1220 for IPv6, if no MSS option is
      received.

   o  MMS_S is the maximum size for a transport-layer message that TCP
      may send.

   o  TCPhdrsize is the size of the fixed TCP header and any options.
      This is 20 in the (rare) case that no options are present, but may
      be larger if TCP options are to be sent.  Note that some options
      may not be included on all segments, but that for each segment
      sent, the sender should adjust the data length accordingly, within
      the Eff.snd.MSS.

   o  IPoptionsize is the size of any IP options associated with a TCP
      connection.  Note that some options may not be included on all
      packets, but that for each segment sent, the sender should adjust
      the data length accordingly, within the Eff.snd.MSS.

   The MSS value to be sent in an MSS option should be equal to the
   effective MTU minus the fixed IP and TCP headers.  By ignoring both
   IP and TCP options when calculating the value for the MSS option, if
   there are any IP or TCP options to be sent in a packet, then the
   sender must decrease the size of the TCP data accordingly.  RFC 6691
   [42] discusses this in greater detail.

   The MSS value to be sent in an MSS option must be less than or equal
   to:

      MMS_R - 20

   where MMS_R is the maximum size for a transport-layer message that
   can be received (and reassembled at the IP layer) (MUST-67).  TCP
   obtains MMS_R and MMS_S from the IP layer; see the generic call
   GET_MAXSIZES in Section 3.4 of RFC 1122.  These are defined in terms
   of their IP MTU equivalents, EMTU_R and EMTU_S [18].

   When TCP is used in a situation where either the IP or TCP headers
   are not fixed, the sender must reduce the amount of TCP data in any
   given packet by the number of octets used by the IP and TCP options.
   This has been a point of confusion historically, as explained in RFC
   6691, Section 3.1.

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3.6.2.  Path MTU Discovery

   A TCP implementation may be aware of the MTU on directly connected
   links, but will rarely have insight about MTUs across an entire
   network path.  For IPv4, RFC 1122 recommends an IP-layer default
   effective MTU of less than or equal to 576 for destinations not
   directly connected.  For IPv6, this would be 1280.  In all cases,
   however, implementation of Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD) and
   Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery (PLPMTUD) is strongly
   recommended in order for TCP to improve segmentation decisions.  Both
   PMTUD and PLPMTUD help TCP choose segment sizes that avoid both on-
   path (for IPv4) and source fragmentation (IPv4 and IPv6).

   PMTUD for IPv4 [2] or IPv6 [3] is implemented in conjunction between
   TCP, IP, and ICMP protocols.  It relies both on avoiding source
   fragmentation and setting the IPv4 DF (don't fragment) flag, the
   latter to inhibit on-path fragmentation.  It relies on ICMP errors
   from routers along the path, whenever a segment is too large to
   traverse a link.  Several adjustments to a TCP implementation with
   PMTUD are described in RFC 2923 in order to deal with problems
   experienced in practice [8].  PLPMTUD [28] is a Standards Track
   improvement to PMTUD that relaxes the requirement for ICMP support
   across a path, and improves performance in cases where ICMP is not
   consistently conveyed, but still tries to avoid source fragmentation.
   The mechanisms in all four of these RFCs are recommended to be
   included in TCP implementations.

   The TCP MSS option specifies an upper bound for the size of packets
   that can be received.  Hence, setting the value in the MSS option too
   small can impact the ability for PMTUD or PLPMTUD to find a larger
   path MTU.  RFC 1191 discusses this implication of many older TCP
   implementations setting MSS to 536 for non-local destinations, rather
   than deriving it from the MTUs of connected interfaces as
   recommended.

3.6.3.  Interfaces with Variable MTU Values

   The effective MTU can sometimes vary, as when used with variable
   compression, e.g., RObust Header Compression (ROHC) [35].  It is
   tempting for a TCP implementation to advertise the largest possible
   MSS, to support the most efficient use of compressed payloads.
   Unfortunately, some compression schemes occasionally need to transmit
   full headers (and thus smaller payloads) to resynchronize state at
   their endpoint compressors/decompressors.  If the largest MTU is used
   to calculate the value to advertise in the MSS option, TCP
   retransmission may interfere with compressor resynchronization.

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   As a result, when the effective MTU of an interface varies packet-to-
   packet, TCP implementations SHOULD use the smallest effective MTU of
   the interface to calculate the value to advertise in the MSS option
   (SHLD-6).

3.6.4.  Nagle Algorithm

   The "Nagle algorithm" was described in RFC 896 [17] and was
   recommended in RFC 1122 [18] for mitigation of an early problem of
   too many small packets being generated.  It has been implemented in
   most current TCP code bases, sometimes with minor variations (see
   Appendix A.3).

   If there is unacknowledged data (i.e., SND.NXT > SND.UNA), then the
   sending TCP endpoint buffers all user data (regardless of the PSH
   bit), until the outstanding data has been acknowledged or until the
   TCP endpoint can send a full-sized segment (Eff.snd.MSS bytes).

   A TCP implementation SHOULD implement the Nagle Algorithm to coalesce
   short segments (SHLD-7).  However, there MUST be a way for an
   application to disable the Nagle algorithm on an individual
   connection (MUST-17).  In all cases, sending data is also subject to
   the limitation imposed by the Slow Start algorithm [34].

   Since there can be problematic interactions between the Nagle
   Algorithm and delayed acknowledgements, some implementations use
   minor variations of the Nagle algorithm, such as the one described in
   Appendix A.3.

3.6.5.  IPv6 Jumbograms

   In order to support TCP over IPv6 Jumbograms, implementations need to
   be able to send TCP segments larger than the 64KB limit that the MSS
   option can convey.  RFC 2675 [6] defines that an MSS value of 65,535
   bytes is to be treated as infinity, and Path MTU Discovery [3] is
   used to determine the actual MSS.

   The Jumbo Payload option need not be implemented or understood by
   IPv6 nodes that do not support attachment to links with a MTU greater
   than 65,575 [6], and the present IPv6 Node Requirements does not
   include support for Jumbograms [53].

3.7.  Data Communication

   Once the connection is established data is communicated by the
   exchange of segments.  Because segments may be lost due to errors
   (checksum test failure), or network congestion, TCP uses
   retransmission to ensure delivery of every segment.  Duplicate

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   segments may arrive due to network or TCP retransmission.  As
   discussed in the section on sequence numbers the TCP implementation
   performs certain tests on the sequence and acknowledgment numbers in
   the segments to verify their acceptability.

   The sender of data keeps track of the next sequence number to use in
   the variable SND.NXT.  The receiver of data keeps track of the next
   sequence number to expect in the variable RCV.NXT.  The sender of
   data keeps track of the oldest unacknowledged sequence number in the
   variable SND.UNA.  If the data flow is momentarily idle and all data
   sent has been acknowledged then the three variables will be equal.

   When the sender creates a segment and transmits it the sender
   advances SND.NXT.  When the receiver accepts a segment it advances
   RCV.NXT and sends an acknowledgment.  When the data sender receives
   an acknowledgment it advances SND.UNA.  The extent to which the
   values of these variables differ is a measure of the delay in the
   communication.  The amount by which the variables are advanced is the
   length of the data and SYN or FIN flags in the segment.  Note that
   once in the ESTABLISHED state all segments must carry current
   acknowledgment information.

   The CLOSE user call implies a push function, as does the FIN control
   flag in an incoming segment.

3.7.1.  Retransmission Timeout

   Because of the variability of the networks that compose an
   internetwork system and the wide range of uses of TCP connections the
   retransmission timeout (RTO) must be dynamically determined.

   The RTO MUST be computed according to the algorithm in [11],
   including Karn's algorithm for taking RTT samples (MUST-18).

   RFC 793 contains an early example procedure for computing the RTO.
   This was then replaced by the algorithm described in RFC 1122, and
   subsequently updated in RFC 2988, and then again in RFC 6298.

   RFC 1122 allows that if a retransmitted packet is identical to the
   original packet (which implies not only that the data boundaries have
   not changed, but also that none of the headers have changed), then
   the same IPv4 Identification field MAY be used (see Section 3.2.1.5
   of RFC 1122) (MAY-4).  The same IP identification field may be reused
   anyways, since it is only meaningful when a datagram is fragmented
   [43].  TCP implementations should not rely on or typically interact
   with this IPv4 header field in any way.  It is not a reasonable way
   to either indicate duplicate sent segments, nor to identify duplicate
   received segments.

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3.7.2.  TCP Congestion Control

   RFC 2914 [7] explains the importance of congestion control for the
   Internet.

   RFC 1122 required implementation of Van Jacobson's congestion control
   algorithms slow start with congestion avoidance together with
   exponential back-off for successive RTO values for the same segment.
   RFC 2581 provided IETF Standards Track description of slow start and
   congestion avoidance, along with fast retransmit and fast recovery.
   RFC 5681 is the current description of these algorithms and is the
   current Standards Track specification providing guidelines for TCP
   congestion control.  RFC 6298 describes exponential back-off of RTO
   values, including keeping the backed-off value until a subsequent
   segment with new data has been sent and acknowledged.

   A TCP endpoint MUST implement the basic congestion control algorithms
   slow start, congestion avoidance, and exponential back-off of RTO to
   avoid creating congestion collapse conditions (MUST-19).  RFC 5681
   and RFC 6298 describe the basic algorithms on the IETF Standards
   Track that are broadly applicable.  Multiple other suitable
   algorithms exist and have been widely used.  Many TCP implementations
   support a set of alternative algorithms that can be configured for
   use on the endpoint.  An endpoint may implement such alternative
   algorithms provided that the algorithms are conformant with the TCP
   specifications from the IETF Standards Track as described in RFC
   2914, RFC 5033 [10], and RFC 8961 [15].

   Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) was defined in RFC 3168 and is
   an IETF Standards Track enhancement that has many benefits [50].

   A TCP endpoint SHOULD implement ECN as described in RFC 3168 (SHLD-
   8).

3.7.3.  TCP Connection Failures

   Excessive retransmission of the same segment by a TCP endpoint
   indicates some failure of the remote host or the Internet path.  This
   failure may be of short or long duration.  The following procedure
   MUST be used to handle excessive retransmissions of data segments
   (MUST-20):

      (a) There are two thresholds R1 and R2 measuring the amount of
      retransmission that has occurred for the same segment.  R1 and R2
      might be measured in time units or as a count of retransmissions.

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      (b) When the number of transmissions of the same segment reaches
      or exceeds threshold R1, pass negative advice (see Section 3.3.1.4
      of [18]) to the IP layer, to trigger dead-gateway diagnosis.

      (c) When the number of transmissions of the same segment reaches a
      threshold R2 greater than R1, close the connection.

      (d) An application MUST (MUST-21) be able to set the value for R2
      for a particular connection.  For example, an interactive
      application might set R2 to "infinity," giving the user control
      over when to disconnect.

      (e) TCP implementations SHOULD inform the application of the
      delivery problem (unless such information has been disabled by the
      application; see Asynchronous Reports section), when R1 is reached
      and before R2 (SHLD-9).  This will allow a remote login (User
      Telnet) application program to inform the user, for example.

   The value of R1 SHOULD correspond to at least 3 retransmissions, at
   the current RTO (SHLD-10).  The value of R2 SHOULD correspond to at
   least 100 seconds (SHLD-11).

   An attempt to open a TCP connection could fail with excessive
   retransmissions of the SYN segment or by receipt of a RST segment or
   an ICMP Port Unreachable.  SYN retransmissions MUST be handled in the
   general way just described for data retransmissions, including
   notification of the application layer.

   However, the values of R1 and R2 may be different for SYN and data
   segments.  In particular, R2 for a SYN segment MUST be set large
   enough to provide retransmission of the segment for at least 3
   minutes (MUST-23).  The application can close the connection (i.e.,
   give up on the open attempt) sooner, of course.

3.7.4.  TCP Keep-Alives

   Implementors MAY include "keep-alives" in their TCP implementations
   (MAY-5), although this practice is not universally accepted.  Some
   TCP implementations, however, have included a keep-alive mechanism.
   To confirm that an idle connection is still active, these
   implementations send a probe segment designed to elicit a response
   from the TCP peer.  Such a segment generally contains SEG.SEQ =
   SND.NXT-1 and may or may not contain one garbage octet of data.  If
   keep-alives are included, the application MUST be able to turn them
   on or off for each TCP connection (MUST-24), and they MUST default to
   off (MUST-25).

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   Keep-alive packets MUST only be sent when no sent data is
   outstanding, and no data or acknowledgement packets have been
   received for the connection within an interval (MUST-26).  This
   interval MUST be configurable (MUST-27) and MUST default to no less
   than two hours (MUST-28).

   It is extremely important to remember that ACK segments that contain
   no data are not reliably transmitted by TCP.  Consequently, if a
   keep-alive mechanism is implemented it MUST NOT interpret failure to
   respond to any specific probe as a dead connection (MUST-29).

   An implementation SHOULD send a keep-alive segment with no data
   (SHLD-12); however, it MAY be configurable to send a keep-alive
   segment containing one garbage octet (MAY-6), for compatibility with
   erroneous TCP implementations.

3.7.5.  The Communication of Urgent Information

   As a result of implementation differences and middlebox interactions,
   new applications SHOULD NOT employ the TCP urgent mechanism (SHLD-
   13).  However, TCP implementations MUST still include support for the
   urgent mechanism (MUST-30).  Details can be found in RFC 6093 [38].

   The objective of the TCP urgent mechanism is to allow the sending
   user to stimulate the receiving user to accept some urgent data and
   to permit the receiving TCP endpoint to indicate to the receiving
   user when all the currently known urgent data has been received by
   the user.

   This mechanism permits a point in the data stream to be designated as
   the end of urgent information.  Whenever this point is in advance of
   the receive sequence number (RCV.NXT) at the receiving TCP endpoint,
   that TCP must tell the user to go into "urgent mode"; when the
   receive sequence number catches up to the urgent pointer, the TCP
   implementation must tell user to go into "normal mode".  If the
   urgent pointer is updated while the user is in "urgent mode", the
   update will be invisible to the user.

   The method employs an urgent field that is carried in all segments
   transmitted.  The URG control flag indicates that the urgent field is
   meaningful and must be added to the segment sequence number to yield
   the urgent pointer.  The absence of this flag indicates that there is
   no urgent data outstanding.

   To send an urgent indication the user must also send at least one
   data octet.  If the sending user also indicates a push, timely
   delivery of the urgent information to the destination process is
   enhanced.

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   A TCP implementation MUST support a sequence of urgent data of any
   length (MUST-31). [18]

   The urgent pointer MUST point to the sequence number of the octet
   following the urgent data (MUST-62).

   A TCP implementation MUST (MUST-32) inform the application layer
   asynchronously whenever it receives an Urgent pointer and there was
   previously no pending urgent data, or whenever the Urgent pointer
   advances in the data stream.  The TCP implementation MUST (MUST-33)
   provide a way for the application to learn how much urgent data
   remains to be read from the connection, or at least to determine
   whether or not more urgent data remains to be read [18].

3.7.6.  Managing the Window

   The window sent in each segment indicates the range of sequence
   numbers the sender of the window (the data receiver) is currently
   prepared to accept.  There is an assumption that this is related to
   the currently available data buffer space available for this
   connection.

   The sending TCP endpoint packages the data to be transmitted into
   segments that fit the current window, and may repackage segments on
   the retransmission queue.  Such repackaging is not required, but may
   be helpful.

   In a connection with a one-way data flow, the window information will
   be carried in acknowledgment segments that all have the same sequence
   number so there will be no way to reorder them if they arrive out of
   order.  This is not a serious problem, but it will allow the window
   information to be on occasion temporarily based on old reports from
   the data receiver.  A refinement to avoid this problem is to act on
   the window information from segments that carry the highest
   acknowledgment number (that is segments with acknowledgment number
   equal or greater than the highest previously received).

   Indicating a large window encourages transmissions.  If more data
   arrives than can be accepted, it will be discarded.  This will result
   in excessive retransmissions, adding unnecessarily to the load on the
   network and the TCP endpoints.  Indicating a small window may
   restrict the transmission of data to the point of introducing a round
   trip delay between each new segment transmitted.

   The mechanisms provided allow a TCP endpoint to advertise a large
   window and to subsequently advertise a much smaller window without
   having accepted that much data.  This, so called "shrinking the
   window," is strongly discouraged.  The robustness principle [18]

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   dictates that TCP peers will not shrink the window themselves, but
   will be prepared for such behavior on the part of other TCP peers.

   A TCP receiver SHOULD NOT shrink the window, i.e., move the right
   window edge to the left (SHLD-14).  However, a sending TCP peer MUST
   be robust against window shrinking, which may cause the "usable
   window" (see Section 3.7.6.2.1) to become negative (MUST-34).

   If this happens, the sender SHOULD NOT send new data (SHLD-15), but
   SHOULD retransmit normally the old unacknowledged data between
   SND.UNA and SND.UNA+SND.WND (SHLD-16).  The sender MAY also
   retransmit old data beyond SND.UNA+SND.WND (MAY-7), but SHOULD NOT
   time out the connection if data beyond the right window edge is not
   acknowledged (SHLD-17).  If the window shrinks to zero, the TCP
   implementation MUST probe it in the standard way (described below)
   (MUST-35).

3.7.6.1.  Zero Window Probing

   The sending TCP peer must be prepared to accept from the user and
   send at least one octet of new data even if the send window is zero.
   The sending TCP peer must regularly retransmit to the receiving TCP
   peer even when the window is zero, in order to "probe" the window.
   Two minutes is recommended for the retransmission interval when the
   window is zero.  This retransmission is essential to guarantee that
   when either TCP peer has a zero window the re-opening of the window
   will be reliably reported to the other.  This is referred to as Zero-
   Window Probing (ZWP) in other documents.

   Probing of zero (offered) windows MUST be supported (MUST-36).

   A TCP implementation MAY keep its offered receive window closed
   indefinitely (MAY-8).  As long as the receiving TCP peer continues to
   send acknowledgments in response to the probe segments, the sending
   TCP peer MUST allow the connection to stay open (MUST-37).  This
   enables TCP to function in scenarios such as the "printer ran out of
   paper" situation described in Section 4.2.2.17 of RFC1122.  The
   behavior is subject to the implementation's resource management
   concerns, as noted in [40].

   When the receiving TCP peer has a zero window and a segment arrives
   it must still send an acknowledgment showing its next expected
   sequence number and current window (zero).

   The transmitting host SHOULD send the first zero-window probe when a
   zero window has existed for the retransmission timeout period (SHLD-
   29) (Section 3.7.1), and SHOULD increase exponentially the interval
   between successive probes (SHLD-30).

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3.7.6.2.  Silly Window Syndrome Avoidance

   The "Silly Window Syndrome" (SWS) is a stable pattern of small
   incremental window movements resulting in extremely poor TCP
   performance.  Algorithms to avoid SWS are described below for both
   the sending side and the receiving side.  RFC 1122 contains more
   detailed discussion of the SWS problem.  Note that the Nagle
   algorithm and the sender SWS avoidance algorithm play complementary
   roles in improving performance.  The Nagle algorithm discourages
   sending tiny segments when the data to be sent increases in small
   increments, while the SWS avoidance algorithm discourages small
   segments resulting from the right window edge advancing in small
   increments.

3.7.6.2.1.  Sender's Algorithm - When to Send Data

   A TCP implementation MUST include a SWS avoidance algorithm in the
   sender (MUST-38).

   The Nagle algorithm from Section 3.6.4 additionally describes how to
   coalesce short segments.

   The sender's SWS avoidance algorithm is more difficult than the
   receivers's, because the sender does not know (directly) the
   receiver's total buffer space RCV.BUFF.  An approach that has been
   found to work well is for the sender to calculate Max(SND.WND), the
   maximum send window it has seen so far on the connection, and to use
   this value as an estimate of RCV.BUFF.  Unfortunately, this can only
   be an estimate; the receiver may at any time reduce the size of
   RCV.BUFF.  To avoid a resulting deadlock, it is necessary to have a
   timeout to force transmission of data, overriding the SWS avoidance
   algorithm.  In practice, this timeout should seldom occur.

   The "usable window" is:

      U = SND.UNA + SND.WND - SND.NXT

   i.e., the offered window less the amount of data sent but not
   acknowledged.  If D is the amount of data queued in the sending TCP
   endpoint but not yet sent, then the following set of rules is
   recommended.

   Send data:

   (1)  if a maximum-sized segment can be sent, i.e, if:

           min(D,U) >= Eff.snd.MSS;

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   (2)  or if the data is pushed and all queued data can be sent now,
        i.e., if:

           [SND.NXT = SND.UNA and] PUSHED and D <= U

        (the bracketed condition is imposed by the Nagle algorithm);

   (3)  or if at least a fraction Fs of the maximum window can be sent,
        i.e., if:

           [SND.NXT = SND.UNA and]

              min(D.U) >= Fs * Max(SND.WND);

   (4)  or if data is PUSHed and the override timeout occurs.

   Here Fs is a fraction whose recommended value is 1/2.  The override
   timeout should be in the range 0.1 - 1.0 seconds.  It may be
   convenient to combine this timer with the timer used to probe zero
   windows (Section 3.7.6.1).

3.7.6.2.2.  Receiver's Algorithm - When to Send a Window Update

   A TCP implementation MUST include a SWS avoidance algorithm in the
   receiver (MUST-39).

   The receiver's SWS avoidance algorithm determines when the right
   window edge may be advanced; this is customarily known as "updating
   the window".  This algorithm combines with the delayed ACK algorithm
   (Section 3.7.6.3) to determine when an ACK segment containing the
   current window will really be sent to the receiver.

   The solution to receiver SWS is to avoid advancing the right window
   edge RCV.NXT+RCV.WND in small increments, even if data is received
   from the network in small segments.

   Suppose the total receive buffer space is RCV.BUFF.  At any given
   moment, RCV.USER octets of this total may be tied up with data that
   has been received and acknowledged but that the user process has not
   yet consumed.  When the connection is quiescent, RCV.WND = RCV.BUFF
   and RCV.USER = 0.

   Keeping the right window edge fixed as data arrives and is
   acknowledged requires that the receiver offer less than its full
   buffer space, i.e., the receiver must specify a RCV.WND that keeps
   RCV.NXT+RCV.WND constant as RCV.NXT increases.  Thus, the total
   buffer space RCV.BUFF is generally divided into three parts:

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                  |<------- RCV.BUFF ---------------->|
                       1             2            3
              ----|---------|------------------|------|----
                         RCV.NXT               ^
                                            (Fixed)

              1 - RCV.USER =  data received but not yet consumed;
              2 - RCV.WND =   space advertised to sender;
              3 - Reduction = space available but not yet
                              advertised.

   The suggested SWS avoidance algorithm for the receiver is to keep
   RCV.NXT+RCV.WND fixed until the reduction satisfies:

                RCV.BUFF - RCV.USER - RCV.WND  >=

                       min( Fr * RCV.BUFF, Eff.snd.MSS )

   where Fr is a fraction whose recommended value is 1/2, and
   Eff.snd.MSS is the effective send MSS for the connection (see
   Section 3.6.1).  When the inequality is satisfied, RCV.WND is set to
   RCV.BUFF-RCV.USER.

   Note that the general effect of this algorithm is to advance RCV.WND
   in increments of Eff.snd.MSS (for realistic receive buffers:
   Eff.snd.MSS < RCV.BUFF/2).  Note also that the receiver must use its
   own Eff.snd.MSS, assuming it is the same as the sender's.

3.7.6.3.  Delayed Acknowledgements - When to Send an ACK Segment

   A host that is receiving a stream of TCP data segments can increase
   efficiency in both the Internet and the hosts by sending fewer than
   one ACK (acknowledgment) segment per data segment received; this is
   known as a "delayed ACK".

   A TCP endpoint SHOULD implement a delayed ACK (SHLD-18), but an ACK
   should not be excessively delayed; in particular, the delay MUST be
   less than 0.5 seconds (MUST-40), and in a stream of full-sized
   segments there SHOULD be an ACK for at least every second segment
   (SHLD-19).  Excessive delays on ACKs can disturb the round-trip
   timing and packet "clocking" algorithms.  More complete discussion of
   delayed ACK behavior is in Section 4.2 of RFC 5681 [34], including
   rules for streams of segments that are not full-sized.  Note that
   there are several current practices that further lead to a reduced
   number of ACKs, including generic receive offload (GRO), ACK
   compression, and ACK decimation [25].

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3.8.  Interfaces

   There are of course two interfaces of concern: the user/TCP interface
   and the TCP/lower-level interface.  We have a fairly elaborate model
   of the user/TCP interface, but the interface to the lower level
   protocol module is left unspecified here, since it will be specified
   in detail by the specification of the lower level protocol.  For the
   case that the lower level is IP we note some of the parameter values
   that TCP implementations might use.

3.8.1.  User/TCP Interface

   The following functional description of user commands to the TCP
   implementation is, at best, fictional, since every operating system
   will have different facilities.  Consequently, we must warn readers
   that different TCP implementations may have different user
   interfaces.  However, all TCP implementations must provide a certain
   minimum set of services to guarantee that all TCP implementations can
   support the same protocol hierarchy.  This section specifies the
   functional interfaces required of all TCP implementations.

   Section 3.1 of [52] also identifies primitives provided by TCP, and
   could be used as an additional reference for implementers.

   TCP User Commands

      The following sections functionally characterize a USER/TCP
      interface.  The notation used is similar to most procedure or
      function calls in high level languages, but this usage is not
      meant to rule out trap type service calls.

      The user commands described below specify the basic functions the
      TCP implementation must perform to support interprocess
      communication.  Individual implementations must define their own
      exact format, and may provide combinations or subsets of the basic
      functions in single calls.  In particular, some implementations
      may wish to automatically OPEN a connection on the first SEND or
      RECEIVE issued by the user for a given connection.

      In providing interprocess communication facilities, the TCP
      implementation must not only accept commands, but must also return
      information to the processes it serves.  The latter consists of:

         (a) general information about a connection (e.g., interrupts,
         remote close, binding of unspecified remote socket).

         (b) replies to specific user commands indicating success or
         various types of failure.

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      Open

         Format: OPEN (local port, remote socket, active/passive [,
         timeout] [, DiffServ field] [, security/compartment] [local IP
         address,] [, options]) -> local connection name

         If the active/passive flag is set to passive, then this is a
         call to LISTEN for an incoming connection.  A passive open may
         have either a fully specified remote socket to wait for a
         particular connection or an unspecified remote socket to wait
         for any call.  A fully specified passive call can be made
         active by the subsequent execution of a SEND.

         A transmission control block (TCB) is created and partially
         filled in with data from the OPEN command parameters.

         Every passive OPEN call either creates a new connection record
         in LISTEN state, or it returns an error; it MUST NOT affect any
         previously created connection record (MUST-41).

         A TCP implementation that supports multiple concurrent
         connections MUST provide an OPEN call that will functionally
         allow an application to LISTEN on a port while a connection
         block with the same local port is in SYN-SENT or SYN-RECEIVED
         state (MUST-42).

         On an active OPEN command, the TCP endpoint will begin the
         procedure to synchronize (i.e., establish) the connection at
         once.

         The timeout, if present, permits the caller to set up a timeout
         for all data submitted to TCP.  If data is not successfully
         delivered to the destination within the timeout period, the TCP
         endpoint will abort the connection.  The present global default
         is five minutes.

         The TCP implementation or some component of the operating
         system will verify the users authority to open a connection
         with the specified DiffServ field value or security/
         compartment.  The absence of a DiffServ field value or
         security/compartment specification in the OPEN call indicates
         the default values must be used.

         TCP will accept incoming requests as matching only if the
         security/compartment information is exactly the same as that
         requested in the OPEN call.

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         The DiffServ field value indicated by the user only impacts
         outgoing packets, may be altered en route through the network,
         and has no direct bearing or relation to received packets.

         A local connection name will be returned to the user by the TCP
         implementation.  The local connection name can then be used as
         a short hand term for the connection defined by the <local
         socket, remote socket> pair.

         The optional "local IP address" parameter MUST be supported to
         allow the specification of the local IP address (MUST-43).
         This enables applications that need to select the local IP
         address used when multihoming is present.

         A passive OPEN call with a specified "local IP address"
         parameter will await an incoming connection request to that
         address.  If the parameter is unspecified, a passive OPEN will
         await an incoming connection request to any local IP address,
         and then bind the local IP address of the connection to the
         particular address that is used.

         For an active OPEN call, a specified "local IP address"
         parameter will be used for opening the connection.  If the
         parameter is unspecified, the host will choose an appropriate
         local IP address (see RFC 1122 section 3.3.4.2).

         If an application on a multihomed host does not specify the
         local IP address when actively opening a TCP connection, then
         the TCP implementation MUST ask the IP layer to select a local
         IP address before sending the (first) SYN (MUST-44).  See the
         function GET_SRCADDR() in Section 3.4 of RFC 1122.

         At all other times, a previous segment has either been sent or
         received on this connection, and TCP implementations MUST use
         the same local address is used that was used in those previous
         segments (MUST-45).

         A TCP implementation MUST reject as an error a local OPEN call
         for an invalid remote IP address (e.g., a broadcast or
         multicast address) (MUST-46).

      Send

         Format: SEND (local connection name, buffer address, byte
         count, PUSH flag (optional), URGENT flag [,timeout])

         This call causes the data contained in the indicated user
         buffer to be sent on the indicated connection.  If the

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         connection has not been opened, the SEND is considered an
         error.  Some implementations may allow users to SEND first; in
         which case, an automatic OPEN would be done.  For example, this
         might be one way for application data to be included in SYN
         segments.  If the calling process is not authorized to use this
         connection, an error is returned.

         A TCP endpoint MAY implement PUSH flags on SEND calls (MAY-15).
         If PUSH flags are not implemented, then the sending TCP peer:
         (1) MUST NOT buffer data indefinitely (MUST-60), and (2) MUST
         set the PSH bit in the last buffered segment (i.e., when there
         is no more queued data to be sent) (MUST-61).  The remaining
         description below assumes the PUSH flag is supported on SEND
         calls.

         If the PUSH flag is set, the application intends the data to be
         transmitted promptly to the receiver, and the PUSH bit will be
         set in the last TCP segment created from the buffer.  When an
         application issues a series of SEND calls without setting the
         PUSH flag, the TCP implementation MAY aggregate the data
         internally without sending it (MAY-16).

         The PSH bit is not a record marker and is independent of
         segment boundaries.  The transmitter SHOULD collapse successive
         bits when it packetizes data, to send the largest possible
         segment (SHLD-27).

         If the PUSH flag is not set, the data may be combined with data
         from subsequent SENDs for transmission efficiency.  Note that
         when the Nagle algorithm is in use, TCP implementations may
         buffer the data before sending, without regard to the PUSH flag
         (see Section 3.6.4).

         An application program is logically required to set the PUSH
         flag in a SEND call whenever it needs to force delivery of the
         data to avoid a communication deadlock.  However, a TCP
         implementation SHOULD send a maximum-sized segment whenever
         possible (SHLD-28), to improve performance (see
         Section 3.7.6.2.1).

         New applications SHOULD NOT set the URGENT flag [38] due to
         implementation differences and middlebox issues (SHLD-13).

         If the URGENT flag is set, segments sent to the destination TCP
         peer will have the urgent pointer set.  The receiving TCP peer
         will signal the urgent condition to the receiving process if
         the urgent pointer indicates that data preceding the urgent
         pointer has not been consumed by the receiving process.  The

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         purpose of urgent is to stimulate the receiver to process the
         urgent data and to indicate to the receiver when all the
         currently known urgent data has been received.  The number of
         times the sending user's TCP implementation signals urgent will
         not necessarily be equal to the number of times the receiving
         user will be notified of the presence of urgent data.

         If no remote socket was specified in the OPEN, but the
         connection is established (e.g., because a LISTENing connection
         has become specific due to a remote segment arriving for the
         local socket), then the designated buffer is sent to the
         implied remote socket.  Users who make use of OPEN with an
         unspecified remote socket can make use of SEND without ever
         explicitly knowing the remote socket address.

         However, if a SEND is attempted before the remote socket
         becomes specified, an error will be returned.  Users can use
         the STATUS call to determine the status of the connection.
         Some TCP implementations may notify the user when an
         unspecified socket is bound.

         If a timeout is specified, the current user timeout for this
         connection is changed to the new one.

         In the simplest implementation, SEND would not return control
         to the sending process until either the transmission was
         complete or the timeout had been exceeded.  However, this
         simple method is both subject to deadlocks (for example, both
         sides of the connection might try to do SENDs before doing any
         RECEIVEs) and offers poor performance, so it is not
         recommended.  A more sophisticated implementation would return
         immediately to allow the process to run concurrently with
         network I/O, and, furthermore, to allow multiple SENDs to be in
         progress.  Multiple SENDs are served in first come, first
         served order, so the TCP endpoint will queue those it cannot
         service immediately.

         We have implicitly assumed an asynchronous user interface in
         which a SEND later elicits some kind of SIGNAL or pseudo-
         interrupt from the serving TCP endpoint.  An alternative is to
         return a response immediately.  For instance, SENDs might
         return immediate local acknowledgment, even if the segment sent
         had not been acknowledged by the distant TCP endpoint.  We
         could optimistically assume eventual success.  If we are wrong,
         the connection will close anyway due to the timeout.  In
         implementations of this kind (synchronous), there will still be
         some asynchronous signals, but these will deal with the
         connection itself, and not with specific segments or buffers.

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         In order for the process to distinguish among error or success
         indications for different SENDs, it might be appropriate for
         the buffer address to be returned along with the coded response
         to the SEND request.  TCP-to-user signals are discussed below,
         indicating the information that should be returned to the
         calling process.

      Receive

         Format: RECEIVE (local connection name, buffer address, byte
         count) -> byte count, urgent flag, push flag (optional)

         This command allocates a receiving buffer associated with the
         specified connection.  If no OPEN precedes this command or the
         calling process is not authorized to use this connection, an
         error is returned.

         In the simplest implementation, control would not return to the
         calling program until either the buffer was filled, or some
         error occurred, but this scheme is highly subject to deadlocks.
         A more sophisticated implementation would permit several
         RECEIVEs to be outstanding at once.  These would be filled as
         segments arrive.  This strategy permits increased throughput at
         the cost of a more elaborate scheme (possibly asynchronous) to
         notify the calling program that a PUSH has been seen or a
         buffer filled.

         A TCP receiver MAY pass a received PSH flag to the application
         layer via the PUSH flag in the interface (MAY-17), but it is
         not required (this was clarified in RFC 1122 section 4.2.2.2).
         The remainder of text describing the RECEIVE call below assumes
         that passing the PUSH indication is supported.

         If enough data arrive to fill the buffer before a PUSH is seen,
         the PUSH flag will not be set in the response to the RECEIVE.
         The buffer will be filled with as much data as it can hold.  If
         a PUSH is seen before the buffer is filled the buffer will be
         returned partially filled and PUSH indicated.

         If there is urgent data the user will have been informed as
         soon as it arrived via a TCP-to-user signal.  The receiving
         user should thus be in "urgent mode".  If the URGENT flag is
         on, additional urgent data remains.  If the URGENT flag is off,
         this call to RECEIVE has returned all the urgent data, and the
         user may now leave "urgent mode".  Note that data following the
         urgent pointer (non-urgent data) cannot be delivered to the
         user in the same buffer with preceding urgent data unless the
         boundary is clearly marked for the user.

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         To distinguish among several outstanding RECEIVEs and to take
         care of the case that a buffer is not completely filled, the
         return code is accompanied by both a buffer pointer and a byte
         count indicating the actual length of the data received.

         Alternative implementations of RECEIVE might have the TCP
         endpoint allocate buffer storage, or the TCP endpoint might
         share a ring buffer with the user.

      Close

         Format: CLOSE (local connection name)

         This command causes the connection specified to be closed.  If
         the connection is not open or the calling process is not
         authorized to use this connection, an error is returned.
         Closing connections is intended to be a graceful operation in
         the sense that outstanding SENDs will be transmitted (and
         retransmitted), as flow control permits, until all have been
         serviced.  Thus, it should be acceptable to make several SEND
         calls, followed by a CLOSE, and expect all the data to be sent
         to the destination.  It should also be clear that users should
         continue to RECEIVE on CLOSING connections, since the remote
         peer may be trying to transmit the last of its data.  Thus,
         CLOSE means "I have no more to send" but does not mean "I will
         not receive any more."  It may happen (if the user level
         protocol is not well thought out) that the closing side is
         unable to get rid of all its data before timing out.  In this
         event, CLOSE turns into ABORT, and the closing TCP peer gives
         up.

         The user may CLOSE the connection at any time on their own
         initiative, or in response to various prompts from the TCP
         implementation (e.g., remote close executed, transmission
         timeout exceeded, destination inaccessible).

         Because closing a connection requires communication with the
         remote TCP peer, connections may remain in the closing state
         for a short time.  Attempts to reopen the connection before the
         TCP peer replies to the CLOSE command will result in error
         responses.

         Close also implies push function.

      Status

         Format: STATUS (local connection name) -> status data

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         This is an implementation dependent user command and could be
         excluded without adverse effect.  Information returned would
         typically come from the TCB associated with the connection.

         This command returns a data block containing the following
         information:

            local socket,
            remote socket,
            local connection name,
            receive window,
            send window,
            connection state,
            number of buffers awaiting acknowledgment,
            number of buffers pending receipt,
            urgent state,
            DiffServ field value,
            security/compartment,
            and transmission timeout.

         Depending on the state of the connection, or on the
         implementation itself, some of this information may not be
         available or meaningful.  If the calling process is not
         authorized to use this connection, an error is returned.  This
         prevents unauthorized processes from gaining information about
         a connection.

      Abort

         Format: ABORT (local connection name)

         This command causes all pending SENDs and RECEIVES to be
         aborted, the TCB to be removed, and a special RESET message to
         be sent to the remote TCP peer of the connection.  Depending on
         the implementation, users may receive abort indications for
         each outstanding SEND or RECEIVE, or may simply receive an
         ABORT-acknowledgment.

      Flush

         Some TCP implementations have included a FLUSH call, which will
         empty the TCP send queue of any data that the user has issued
         SEND calls but is still to the right of the current send
         window.  That is, it flushes as much queued send data as
         possible without losing sequence number synchronization.  The
         FLUSH call MAY be implemented (MAY-14).

      Asynchronous Reports

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         There MUST be a mechanism for reporting soft TCP error
         conditions to the application (MUST-47).  Generically, we
         assume this takes the form of an application-supplied
         ERROR_REPORT routine that may be upcalled asynchronously from
         the transport layer:

            ERROR_REPORT(local connection name, reason, subreason)

         The precise encoding of the reason and subreason parameters is
         not specified here.  However, the conditions that are reported
         asynchronously to the application MUST include:

            * ICMP error message arrived (see Section 3.8.2.2 for
            description of handling each ICMP message type, since some
            message types need to be suppressed from generating reports
            to the application)

            * Excessive retransmissions (see Section 3.7.3)

            * Urgent pointer advance (see Section 3.7.5)

         However, an application program that does not want to receive
         such ERROR_REPORT calls SHOULD be able to effectively disable
         these calls (SHLD-20).

      Set Differentiated Services Field (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 Traffic Class)

         The application layer MUST be able to specify the
         Differentiated Services field for segments that are sent on a
         connection (MUST-48).  The Differentiated Services field
         includes the 6-bit Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP)
         value.  It is not required, but the application SHOULD be able
         to change the Differentiated Services field during the
         connection lifetime (SHLD-21).  TCP implementations SHOULD pass
         the current Differentiated Services field value without change
         to the IP layer, when it sends segments on the connection
         (SHLD-22).

         The Differentiated Services field will be specified
         independently in each direction on the connection, so that the
         receiver application will specify the Differentiated Services
         field used for ACK segments.

         TCP implementations MAY pass the most recently received
         Differentiated Services field up to the application (MAY-9).

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3.8.2.  TCP/Lower-Level Interface

   The TCP endpoint calls on a lower level protocol module to actually
   send and receive information over a network.  The two current
   standard Internet Protocol (IP) versions layered below TCP are IPv4
   [1] and IPv6 [14].

   If the lower level protocol is IPv4 it provides arguments for a type
   of service (used within the Differentiated Services field) and for a
   time to live.  TCP uses the following settings for these parameters:

      DiffServ field: The IP header value for the DiffServ field is
      given by the user.  This includes the bits of the DiffServ Code
      Point (DSCP).

      Time to Live (TTL): The TTL value used to send TCP segments MUST
      be configurable (MUST-49).

         Note that RFC 793 specified one minute (60 seconds) as a
         constant for the TTL, because the assumed maximum segment
         lifetime was two minutes.  This was intended to explicitly ask
         that a segment be destroyed if it cannot be delivered by the
         internet system within one minute.  RFC 1122 changed this
         specification to require that the TTL be configurable.

         Note that the DiffServ field is permitted to change during a
         connection (Section 4.2.4.2 of RFC 1122).  However, the
         application interface might not support this ability, and the
         application does not have knowledge about individual TCP
         segments, so this can only be done on a coarse granularity, at
         best.  This limitation is further discussed in RFC 7657 (sec
         5.1, 5.3, and 6) [49].  Generally, an application SHOULD NOT
         change the DiffServ field value during the course of a
         connection (SHLD-23).

   Any lower level protocol will have to provide the source address,
   destination address, and protocol fields, and some way to determine
   the "TCP length", both to provide the functional equivalent service
   of IP and to be used in the TCP checksum.

   When received options are passed up to TCP from the IP layer, TCP
   implementations MUST ignore options that it does not understand
   (MUST-50).

   A TCP implementation MAY support the Time Stamp (MAY-10) and Record
   Route (MAY-11) options.

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3.8.2.1.  Source Routing

   If the lower level is IP (or other protocol that provides this
   feature) and source routing is used, the interface must allow the
   route information to be communicated.  This is especially important
   so that the source and destination addresses used in the TCP checksum
   be the originating source and ultimate destination.  It is also
   important to preserve the return route to answer connection requests.

   An application MUST be able to specify a source route when it
   actively opens a TCP connection (MUST-51), and this MUST take
   precedence over a source route received in a datagram (MUST-52).

   When a TCP connection is OPENed passively and a packet arrives with a
   completed IP Source Route option (containing a return route), TCP
   implementations MUST save the return route and use it for all
   segments sent on this connection (MUST-53).  If a different source
   route arrives in a later segment, the later definition SHOULD
   override the earlier one (SHLD-24).

3.8.2.2.  ICMP Messages

   TCP implementations MUST act on an ICMP error message passed up from
   the IP layer, directing it to the connection that created the error
   (MUST-54).  The necessary demultiplexing information can be found in
   the IP header contained within the ICMP message.

   This applies to ICMPv6 in addition to IPv4 ICMP.

   [32] contains discussion of specific ICMP and ICMPv6 messages
   classified as either "soft" or "hard" errors that may bear different
   responses.  Treatment for classes of ICMP messages is described
   below:

   Source Quench
     TCP implementations MUST silently discard any received ICMP Source
     Quench messages (MUST-55).  See [12] for discussion.

   Soft Errors
     For ICMP these include: Destination Unreachable -- codes 0, 1, 5,
     Time Exceeded -- codes 0, 1, and Parameter Problem.
     For ICMPv6 these include: Destination Unreachable -- codes 0 and 3,
     Time Exceeded -- codes 0, 1, and Parameter Problem -- codes 0, 1, 2
     Since these Unreachable messages indicate soft error conditions,
     TCP implementations MUST NOT abort the connection (MUST-56), and it
     SHOULD make the information available to the application (SHLD-25).

   Hard Errors

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     For ICMP these include Destination Unreachable -- codes 2-4">
     These are hard error conditions, so TCP implementations SHOULD
     abort the connection (SHLD-26).  [32] notes that some
     implementations do not abort connections when an ICMP hard error is
     received for a connection that is in any of the synchronized
     states.

   Note that [32] section 4 describes widespread implementation behavior
   that treats soft errors as hard errors during connection
   establishment.

3.8.2.3.  Source Address Validation

   RFC 1122 requires addresses to be validated in incoming SYN packets:

      An incoming SYN with an invalid source address MUST be ignored
      either by TCP or by the IP layer (MUST-63) (Section 3.2.1.3 of
      [18]).

      A TCP implementation MUST silently discard an incoming SYN segment
      that is addressed to a broadcast or multicast address (MUST-57).

   This prevents connection state and replies from being erroneously
   generated, and implementers should note that this guidance is
   applicable to all incoming segments, not just SYNs, as specifically
   indicated in RFC 1122.

3.9.  Event Processing

   The processing depicted in this section is an example of one possible
   implementation.  Other implementations may have slightly different
   processing sequences, but they should differ from those in this
   section only in detail, not in substance.

   The activity of the TCP endpoint can be characterized as responding
   to events.  The events that occur can be cast into three categories:
   user calls, arriving segments, and timeouts.  This section describes
   the processing the TCP endpoint does in response to each of the
   events.  In many cases the processing required depends on the state
   of the connection.

   Events that occur:

      User Calls

         OPEN
         SEND
         RECEIVE

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         CLOSE
         ABORT
         STATUS

      Arriving Segments

         SEGMENT ARRIVES

      Timeouts

         USER TIMEOUT
         RETRANSMISSION TIMEOUT
         TIME-WAIT TIMEOUT

   The model of the TCP/user interface is that user commands receive an
   immediate return and possibly a delayed response via an event or
   pseudo interrupt.  In the following descriptions, the term "signal"
   means cause a delayed response.

   Error responses in this document are identified by character strings.
   For example, user commands referencing connections that do not exist
   receive "error: connection not open".

   Please note in the following that all arithmetic on sequence numbers,
   acknowledgment numbers, windows, et cetera, is modulo 2**32 the size
   of the sequence number space.  Also note that "=<" means less than or
   equal to (modulo 2**32).

   A natural way to think about processing incoming segments is to
   imagine that they are first tested for proper sequence number (i.e.,
   that their contents lie in the range of the expected "receive window"
   in the sequence number space) and then that they are generally queued
   and processed in sequence number order.

   When a segment overlaps other already received segments we
   reconstruct the segment to contain just the new data, and adjust the
   header fields to be consistent.

   Note that if no state change is mentioned the TCP connection stays in
   the same state.

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   OPEN Call

      CLOSED STATE (i.e., TCB does not exist)

         Create a new transmission control block (TCB) to hold
         connection state information.  Fill in local socket identifier,
         remote socket, DiffServ field, security/compartment, and user
         timeout information.  Note that some parts of the remote socket
         may be unspecified in a passive OPEN and are to be filled in by
         the parameters of the incoming SYN segment.  Verify the
         security and DiffServ value requested are allowed for this
         user, if not return "error: precedence not allowed" or "error:
         security/compartment not allowed."  If passive enter the LISTEN
         state and return.  If active and the remote socket is
         unspecified, return "error: remote socket unspecified"; if
         active and the remote socket is specified, issue a SYN segment.
         An initial send sequence number (ISS) is selected.  A SYN
         segment of the form <SEQ=ISS><CTL=SYN> is sent.  Set SND.UNA to
         ISS, SND.NXT to ISS+1, enter SYN-SENT state, and return.

         If the caller does not have access to the local socket
         specified, return "error: connection illegal for this process".
         If there is no room to create a new connection, return "error:
         insufficient resources".

      LISTEN STATE

         If active and the remote socket is specified, then change the
         connection from passive to active, select an ISS.  Send a SYN
         segment, set SND.UNA to ISS, SND.NXT to ISS+1.  Enter SYN-SENT
         state.  Data associated with SEND may be sent with SYN segment
         or queued for transmission after entering ESTABLISHED state.
         The urgent bit if requested in the command must be sent with
         the data segments sent as a result of this command.  If there
         is no room to queue the request, respond with "error:
         insufficient resources".  If Foreign socket was not specified,
         then return "error: remote socket unspecified".

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      SYN-SENT STATE
      SYN-RECEIVED STATE
      ESTABLISHED STATE
      FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
      FIN-WAIT-2 STATE
      CLOSE-WAIT STATE
      CLOSING STATE
      LAST-ACK STATE
      TIME-WAIT STATE

         Return "error: connection already exists".

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   SEND Call

      CLOSED STATE (i.e., TCB does not exist)

         If the user does not have access to such a connection, then
         return "error: connection illegal for this process".

         Otherwise, return "error: connection does not exist".

      LISTEN STATE

         If the remote socket is specified, then change the connection
         from passive to active, select an ISS.  Send a SYN segment, set
         SND.UNA to ISS, SND.NXT to ISS+1.  Enter SYN-SENT state.  Data
         associated with SEND may be sent with SYN segment or queued for
         transmission after entering ESTABLISHED state.  The urgent bit
         if requested in the command must be sent with the data segments
         sent as a result of this command.  If there is no room to queue
         the request, respond with "error: insufficient resources".  If
         Foreign socket was not specified, then return "error: remote
         socket unspecified".

      SYN-SENT STATE
      SYN-RECEIVED STATE

         Queue the data for transmission after entering ESTABLISHED
         state.  If no space to queue, respond with "error: insufficient
         resources".

      ESTABLISHED STATE
      CLOSE-WAIT STATE

         Segmentize the buffer and send it with a piggybacked
         acknowledgment (acknowledgment value = RCV.NXT).  If there is
         insufficient space to remember this buffer, simply return
         "error: insufficient resources".

         If the urgent flag is set, then SND.UP <- SND.NXT and set the
         urgent pointer in the outgoing segments.

      FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
      FIN-WAIT-2 STATE
      CLOSING STATE
      LAST-ACK STATE
      TIME-WAIT STATE

         Return "error: connection closing" and do not service request.

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   RECEIVE Call

      CLOSED STATE (i.e., TCB does not exist)

         If the user does not have access to such a connection, return
         "error: connection illegal for this process".

         Otherwise return "error: connection does not exist".

      LISTEN STATE
      SYN-SENT STATE
      SYN-RECEIVED STATE

         Queue for processing after entering ESTABLISHED state.  If
         there is no room to queue this request, respond with "error:
         insufficient resources".

      ESTABLISHED STATE
      FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
      FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

         If insufficient incoming segments are queued to satisfy the
         request, queue the request.  If there is no queue space to
         remember the RECEIVE, respond with "error: insufficient
         resources".

         Reassemble queued incoming segments into receive buffer and
         return to user.  Mark "push seen" (PUSH) if this is the case.

         If RCV.UP is in advance of the data currently being passed to
         the user notify the user of the presence of urgent data.

         When the TCP endpoint takes responsibility for delivering data
         to the user that fact must be communicated to the sender via an
         acknowledgment.  The formation of such an acknowledgment is
         described below in the discussion of processing an incoming
         segment.

      CLOSE-WAIT STATE

         Since the remote side has already sent FIN, RECEIVEs must be
         satisfied by text already on hand, but not yet delivered to the
         user.  If no text is awaiting delivery, the RECEIVE will get a
         "error: connection closing" response.  Otherwise, any remaining
         text can be used to satisfy the RECEIVE.

      CLOSING STATE
      LAST-ACK STATE

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      TIME-WAIT STATE

         Return "error: connection closing".

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   CLOSE Call

      CLOSED STATE (i.e., TCB does not exist)

         If the user does not have access to such a connection, return
         "error: connection illegal for this process".

         Otherwise, return "error: connection does not exist".

      LISTEN STATE

         Any outstanding RECEIVEs are returned with "error: closing"
         responses.  Delete TCB, enter CLOSED state, and return.

      SYN-SENT STATE

         Delete the TCB and return "error: closing" responses to any
         queued SENDs, or RECEIVEs.

      SYN-RECEIVED STATE

         If no SENDs have been issued and there is no pending data to
         send, then form a FIN segment and send it, and enter FIN-WAIT-1
         state; otherwise queue for processing after entering
         ESTABLISHED state.

      ESTABLISHED STATE

         Queue this until all preceding SENDs have been segmentized,
         then form a FIN segment and send it.  In any case, enter FIN-
         WAIT-1 state.

      FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
      FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

         Strictly speaking, this is an error and should receive a
         "error: connection closing" response.  An "ok" response would
         be acceptable, too, as long as a second FIN is not emitted (the
         first FIN may be retransmitted though).

      CLOSE-WAIT STATE

         Queue this request until all preceding SENDs have been
         segmentized; then send a FIN segment, enter LAST-ACK state.

      CLOSING STATE
      LAST-ACK STATE
      TIME-WAIT STATE

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         Respond with "error: connection closing".

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   ABORT Call

      CLOSED STATE (i.e., TCB does not exist)

         If the user should not have access to such a connection, return
         "error: connection illegal for this process".

         Otherwise return "error: connection does not exist".

      LISTEN STATE

         Any outstanding RECEIVEs should be returned with "error:
         connection reset" responses.  Delete TCB, enter CLOSED state,
         and return.

      SYN-SENT STATE

         All queued SENDs and RECEIVEs should be given "connection
         reset" notification, delete the TCB, enter CLOSED state, and
         return.

      SYN-RECEIVED STATE
      ESTABLISHED STATE
      FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
      FIN-WAIT-2 STATE
      CLOSE-WAIT STATE

         Send a reset segment:

            <SEQ=SND.NXT><CTL=RST>

         All queued SENDs and RECEIVEs should be given "connection
         reset" notification; all segments queued for transmission
         (except for the RST formed above) or retransmission should be
         flushed, delete the TCB, enter CLOSED state, and return.

      CLOSING STATE LAST-ACK STATE TIME-WAIT STATE

         Respond with "ok" and delete the TCB, enter CLOSED state, and
         return.

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   STATUS Call

      CLOSED STATE (i.e., TCB does not exist)

         If the user should not have access to such a connection, return
         "error: connection illegal for this process".

         Otherwise return "error: connection does not exist".

      LISTEN STATE

         Return "state = LISTEN", and the TCB pointer.

      SYN-SENT STATE

         Return "state = SYN-SENT", and the TCB pointer.

      SYN-RECEIVED STATE

         Return "state = SYN-RECEIVED", and the TCB pointer.

      ESTABLISHED STATE

         Return "state = ESTABLISHED", and the TCB pointer.

      FIN-WAIT-1 STATE

         Return "state = FIN-WAIT-1", and the TCB pointer.

      FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

         Return "state = FIN-WAIT-2", and the TCB pointer.

      CLOSE-WAIT STATE

         Return "state = CLOSE-WAIT", and the TCB pointer.

      CLOSING STATE

         Return "state = CLOSING", and the TCB pointer.

      LAST-ACK STATE

         Return "state = LAST-ACK", and the TCB pointer.

      TIME-WAIT STATE

         Return "state = TIME-WAIT", and the TCB pointer.

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   SEGMENT ARRIVES

      If the state is CLOSED (i.e., TCB does not exist) then

         all data in the incoming segment is discarded.  An incoming
         segment containing a RST is discarded.  An incoming segment not
         containing a RST causes a RST to be sent in response.  The
         acknowledgment and sequence field values are selected to make
         the reset sequence acceptable to the TCP endpoint that sent the
         offending segment.

         If the ACK bit is off, sequence number zero is used,

            <SEQ=0><ACK=SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN><CTL=RST,ACK>

         If the ACK bit is on,

            <SEQ=SEG.ACK><CTL=RST>

         Return.

      If the state is LISTEN then

         first check for an RST

            An incoming RST should be ignored.  Return.

         second check for an ACK

            Any acknowledgment is bad if it arrives on a connection
            still in the LISTEN state.  An acceptable reset segment
            should be formed for any arriving ACK-bearing segment.  The
            RST should be formatted as follows:

               <SEQ=SEG.ACK><CTL=RST>

            Return.

         third check for a SYN

            If the SYN bit is set, check the security.  If the security/
            compartment on the incoming segment does not exactly match
            the security/compartment in the TCB then send a reset and
            return.

               <SEQ=0><ACK=SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN><CTL=RST,ACK>

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            Set RCV.NXT to SEG.SEQ+1, IRS is set to SEG.SEQ and any
            other control or text should be queued for processing later.
            ISS should be selected and a SYN segment sent of the form:

               <SEQ=ISS><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=SYN,ACK>

            SND.NXT is set to ISS+1 and SND.UNA to ISS.  The connection
            state should be changed to SYN-RECEIVED.  Note that any
            other incoming control or data (combined with SYN) will be
            processed in the SYN-RECEIVED state, but processing of SYN
            and ACK should not be repeated.  If the listen was not fully
            specified (i.e., the remote socket was not fully specified),
            then the unspecified fields should be filled in now.

         fourth other text or control

            Any other control or text-bearing segment (not containing
            SYN) must have an ACK and thus would be discarded by the ACK
            processing.  An incoming RST segment could not be valid,
            since it could not have been sent in response to anything
            sent by this incarnation of the connection.  So, if this
            unlikely condition is reached, the correct behavior is to
            drop the segment and return.

      If the state is SYN-SENT then

         first check the ACK bit

            If the ACK bit is set

               If SEG.ACK =< ISS, or SEG.ACK > SND.NXT, send a reset
               (unless the RST bit is set, if so drop the segment and
               return)

                  <SEQ=SEG.ACK><CTL=RST>

               and discard the segment.  Return.

               If SND.UNA < SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT then the ACK is
               acceptable.  Some deployed TCP code has used the check
               SEG.ACK == SND.NXT (using "==" rather than "=<", but this
               is not appropriate when the stack is capable of sending
               data on the SYN, because the TCP peer may not accept and
               acknowledge all of the data on the SYN.

         second check the RST bit

            If the RST bit is set

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               A potential blind reset attack is described in RFC 5961
               [37].  The mitigation described in that document has
               specific applicability explained therein, and is not a
               substitute for cryptographic protection (e.g.  IPsec or
               TCP-AO).  A TCP implementation that supports the RFC 5961
               mitigation SHOULD first check that the sequence number
               exactly matches RCV.NXT prior to executing the action in
               the next paragraph.

               If the ACK was acceptable then signal the user "error:
               connection reset", drop the segment, enter CLOSED state,
               delete TCB, and return.  Otherwise (no ACK) drop the
               segment and return.

         third check the security

            If the security/compartment in the segment does not exactly
            match the security/compartment in the TCB, send a reset

               If there is an ACK

                  <SEQ=SEG.ACK><CTL=RST>

               Otherwise

                  <SEQ=0><ACK=SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN><CTL=RST,ACK>

            If a reset was sent, discard the segment and return.

         fourth check the SYN bit

            This step should be reached only if the ACK is ok, or there
            is no ACK, and it the segment did not contain a RST.

            If the SYN bit is on and the security/compartment is
            acceptable then, RCV.NXT is set to SEG.SEQ+1, IRS is set to
            SEG.SEQ.  SND.UNA should be advanced to equal SEG.ACK (if
            there is an ACK), and any segments on the retransmission
            queue that are thereby acknowledged should be removed.

            If SND.UNA > ISS (our SYN has been ACKed), change the
            connection state to ESTABLISHED, form an ACK segment

               <SEQ=SND.NXT><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=ACK>

            and send it.  Data or controls that were queued for
            transmission may be included.  If there are other controls

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            or text in the segment then continue processing at the sixth
            step below where the URG bit is checked, otherwise return.

            Otherwise enter SYN-RECEIVED, form a SYN,ACK segment

               <SEQ=ISS><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=SYN,ACK>

            and send it.  Set the variables:

               SND.WND <- SEG.WND
               SND.WL1 <- SEG.SEQ
               SND.WL2 <- SEG.ACK

            If there are other controls or text in the segment, queue
            them for processing after the ESTABLISHED state has been
            reached, return.

            Note that it is legal to send and receive application data
            on SYN segments (this is the "text in the segment" mentioned
            above.  There has been significant misinformation and
            misunderstanding of this topic historically.  Some firewalls
            and security devices consider this suspicious.  However, the
            capability was used in T/TCP [20] and is used in TCP Fast
            Open (TFO) [47], so is important for implementations and
            network devices to permit.

         fifth, if neither of the SYN or RST bits is set then drop the
         segment and return.

      Otherwise,

      first check sequence number

         SYN-RECEIVED STATE
         ESTABLISHED STATE
         FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
         FIN-WAIT-2 STATE
         CLOSE-WAIT STATE
         CLOSING STATE
         LAST-ACK STATE
         TIME-WAIT STATE

            Segments are processed in sequence.  Initial tests on
            arrival are used to discard old duplicates, but further
            processing is done in SEG.SEQ order.  If a segment's
            contents straddle the boundary between old and new, only the
            new parts should be processed.

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            In general, the processing of received segments MUST be
            implemented to aggregate ACK segments whenever possible
            (MUST-58).  For example, if the TCP endpoint is processing a
            series of queued segments, it MUST process them all before
            sending any ACK segments (MUST-59).

            There are four cases for the acceptability test for an
            incoming segment:

         Segment Receive  Test
         Length  Window
         ------- -------  -------------------------------------------

            0       0     SEG.SEQ = RCV.NXT

            0      >0     RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

           >0       0     not acceptable

           >0      >0     RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND
                       or RCV.NXT =< SEG.SEQ+SEG.LEN-1 < RCV.NXT+RCV.WND

            In implementing sequence number validation as described
            here, please note Appendix A.2.

            If the RCV.WND is zero, no segments will be acceptable, but
            special allowance should be made to accept valid ACKs, URGs
            and RSTs.

            If an incoming segment is not acceptable, an acknowledgment
            should be sent in reply (unless the RST bit is set, if so
            drop the segment and return):

               <SEQ=SND.NXT><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=ACK>

            After sending the acknowledgment, drop the unacceptable
            segment and return.

            Note that for the TIME-WAIT state, there is an improved
            algorithm described in [39] for handling incoming SYN
            segments, that utilizes timestamps rather than relying on
            the sequence number check described here.  When the improved
            algorithm is implemented, the logic above is not applicable
            for incoming SYN segments with timestamp options, received
            on a connection in the TIME-WAIT state.

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            In the following it is assumed that the segment is the
            idealized segment that begins at RCV.NXT and does not exceed
            the window.  One could tailor actual segments to fit this
            assumption by trimming off any portions that lie outside the
            window (including SYN and FIN), and only processing further
            if the segment then begins at RCV.NXT.  Segments with higher
            beginning sequence numbers SHOULD be held for later
            processing (SHLD-31).

         second check the RST bit,

            RFC 5961 [37] section 3 describes a potential blind reset
            attack and optional mitigation approach.  This does not
            provide a cryptographic protection (e.g. as in IPsec or TCP-
            AO), but can be applicable in situations described in RFC
            5961.  For stacks implementing the RFC 5961 protection, the
            three checks below apply, otherwise processing for these
            states is indicated further below.

               1) If the RST bit is set and the sequence number is
               outside the current receive window, silently drop the
               segment.

               2) If the RST bit is set and the sequence number exactly
               matches the next expected sequence number (RCV.NXT), then
               TCP endpoints MUST reset the connection in the manner
               prescribed below according to the connection state.

               3) If the RST bit is set and the sequence number does not
               exactly match the next expected sequence value, yet is
               within the current receive window, TCP endpoints MUST
               send an acknowledgement (challenge ACK):

               <SEQ=SND.NXT><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=ACK>

               After sending the challenge ACK, TCP endpoints MUST drop
               the unacceptable segment and stop processing the incoming
               packet further.  Note that RFC 5961 and Errata ID 4772
               contain additional considerations for ACK throttling in
               an implementation.

            SYN-RECEIVED STATE

               If the RST bit is set

                  If this connection was initiated with a passive OPEN
                  (i.e., came from the LISTEN state), then return this
                  connection to LISTEN state and return.  The user need

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                  not be informed.  If this connection was initiated
                  with an active OPEN (i.e., came from SYN-SENT state)
                  then the connection was refused, signal the user
                  "connection refused".  In either case, all segments on
                  the retransmission queue should be removed.  And in
                  the active OPEN case, enter the CLOSED state and
                  delete the TCB, and return.

            ESTABLISHED
            FIN-WAIT-1
            FIN-WAIT-2
            CLOSE-WAIT

               If the RST bit is set then, any outstanding RECEIVEs and
               SEND should receive "reset" responses.  All segment
               queues should be flushed.  Users should also receive an
               unsolicited general "connection reset" signal.  Enter the
               CLOSED state, delete the TCB, and return.

            CLOSING STATE
            LAST-ACK STATE
            TIME-WAIT

               If the RST bit is set then, enter the CLOSED state,
               delete the TCB, and return.

         third check security

            SYN-RECEIVED

               If the security/compartment in the segment does not
               exactly match the security/compartment in the TCB then
               send a reset, and return.

            ESTABLISHED
            FIN-WAIT-1
            FIN-WAIT-2
            CLOSE-WAIT
            CLOSING
            LAST-ACK
            TIME-WAIT

               If the security/compartment in the segment does not
               exactly match the security/compartment in the TCB then
               send a reset, any outstanding RECEIVEs and SEND should
               receive "reset" responses.  All segment queues should be
               flushed.  Users should also receive an unsolicited

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               general "connection reset" signal.  Enter the CLOSED
               state, delete the TCB, and return.

            Note this check is placed following the sequence check to
            prevent a segment from an old connection between these port
            numbers with a different security from causing an abort of
            the current connection.

         fourth, check the SYN bit,

            SYN-RECEIVED

               If the connection was initiated with a passive OPEN, then
               return this connection to the LISTEN state and return.
               Otherwise, handle per the directions for synchronized
               states below.

            ESTABLISHED STATE
            FIN-WAIT STATE-1
            FIN-WAIT STATE-2
            CLOSE-WAIT STATE
            CLOSING STATE
            LAST-ACK STATE
            TIME-WAIT STATE

               If the SYN bit is set in these synchronized states, it
               may be either a legitimate new connection attempt (e.g.
               in the case of TIME-WAIT), an error where the connection
               should be reset, or the result of an attack attempt, as
               described in RFC 5961 [37].  For the TIME-WAIT state, new
               connections can be accepted if the timestamp option is
               used and meets expectations (per [39]).  For all other
               cases, RFC 5961 provides a mitigation with applicability
               to some situations, though there are also alternatives
               that offer cryptographic protection (see Section 6).  RFC
               5961 recommends that in these synchronized states, if the
               SYN bit is set, irrespective of the sequence number, TCP
               endpoints MUST send a "challenge ACK" to the remote peer:

               <SEQ=SND.NXT><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=ACK>

               After sending the acknowledgement, TCP implementations
               MUST drop the unacceptable segment and stop processing
               further.  Note that RFC 5961 and Errata ID 4772 contain
               additional ACK throttling notes for an implementation.

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               For implementations that do not follow RFC 5961, the
               original RFC 793 behavior follows in this paragraph.  If
               the SYN is in the window it is an error, send a reset,
               any outstanding RECEIVEs and SEND should receive "reset"
               responses, all segment queues should be flushed, the user
               should also receive an unsolicited general "connection
               reset" signal, enter the CLOSED state, delete the TCB,
               and return.

               If the SYN is not in the window this step would not be
               reached and an ACK would have been sent in the first step
               (sequence number check).

         fifth check the ACK field,

            if the ACK bit is off drop the segment and return

            if the ACK bit is on

               RFC 5961 [37] section 5 describes a potential blind data
               injection attack, and mitigation that implementations MAY
               choose to include (MAY-12).  TCP stacks that implement
               RFC 5961 MUST add an input check that the ACK value is
               acceptable only if it is in the range of ((SND.UNA -
               MAX.SND.WND) =< SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT).  All incoming
               segments whose ACK value doesn't satisfy the above
               condition MUST be discarded and an ACK sent back.  The
               new state variable MAX.SND.WND is defined as the largest
               window that the local sender has ever received from its
               peer (subject to window scaling) or may be hard-coded to
               a maximum permissible window value.  When the ACK value
               is acceptable, the processing per-state below applies:

               SYN-RECEIVED STATE

                  If SND.UNA < SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT then enter ESTABLISHED
                  state and continue processing with variables below set
                  to:

                     SND.WND <- SEG.WND
                     SND.WL1 <- SEG.SEQ
                     SND.WL2 <- SEG.ACK

                     If the segment acknowledgment is not acceptable,
                     form a reset segment,

                        <SEQ=SEG.ACK><CTL=RST>

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                     and send it.

               ESTABLISHED STATE

                  If SND.UNA < SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT then, set SND.UNA <-
                  SEG.ACK.  Any segments on the retransmission queue
                  that are thereby entirely acknowledged are removed.
                  Users should receive positive acknowledgments for
                  buffers that have been SENT and fully acknowledged
                  (i.e., SEND buffer should be returned with "ok"
                  response).  If the ACK is a duplicate (SEG.ACK =<
                  SND.UNA), it can be ignored.  If the ACK acks
                  something not yet sent (SEG.ACK > SND.NXT) then send
                  an ACK, drop the segment, and return.

                  If SND.UNA =< SEG.ACK =< SND.NXT, the send window
                  should be updated.  If (SND.WL1 < SEG.SEQ or (SND.WL1
                  = SEG.SEQ and SND.WL2 =< SEG.ACK)), set SND.WND <-
                  SEG.WND, set SND.WL1 <- SEG.SEQ, and set SND.WL2 <-
                  SEG.ACK.

                  Note that SND.WND is an offset from SND.UNA, that
                  SND.WL1 records the sequence number of the last
                  segment used to update SND.WND, and that SND.WL2
                  records the acknowledgment number of the last segment
                  used to update SND.WND.  The check here prevents using
                  old segments to update the window.

               FIN-WAIT-1 STATE

                  In addition to the processing for the ESTABLISHED
                  state, if the FIN segment is now acknowledged then
                  enter FIN-WAIT-2 and continue processing in that
                  state.

               FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

                  In addition to the processing for the ESTABLISHED
                  state, if the retransmission queue is empty, the
                  user's CLOSE can be acknowledged ("ok") but do not
                  delete the TCB.

               CLOSE-WAIT STATE

                  Do the same processing as for the ESTABLISHED state.

               CLOSING STATE

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                  In addition to the processing for the ESTABLISHED
                  state, if the ACK acknowledges our FIN then enter the
                  TIME-WAIT state, otherwise ignore the segment.

               LAST-ACK STATE

                  The only thing that can arrive in this state is an
                  acknowledgment of our FIN.  If our FIN is now
                  acknowledged, delete the TCB, enter the CLOSED state,
                  and return.

               TIME-WAIT STATE

                  The only thing that can arrive in this state is a
                  retransmission of the remote FIN.  Acknowledge it, and
                  restart the 2 MSL timeout.

         sixth, check the URG bit,

            ESTABLISHED STATE
            FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
            FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

               If the URG bit is set, RCV.UP <- max(RCV.UP,SEG.UP), and
               signal the user that the remote side has urgent data if
               the urgent pointer (RCV.UP) is in advance of the data
               consumed.  If the user has already been signaled (or is
               still in the "urgent mode") for this continuous sequence
               of urgent data, do not signal the user again.

            CLOSE-WAIT STATE
            CLOSING STATE
            LAST-ACK STATE
            TIME-WAIT

               This should not occur, since a FIN has been received from
               the remote side.  Ignore the URG.

         seventh, process the segment text,

            ESTABLISHED STATE
            FIN-WAIT-1 STATE
            FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

               Once in the ESTABLISHED state, it is possible to deliver
               segment text to user RECEIVE buffers.  Text from segments
               can be moved into buffers until either the buffer is full
               or the segment is empty.  If the segment empties and

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               carries a PUSH flag, then the user is informed, when the
               buffer is returned, that a PUSH has been received.

               When the TCP endpoint takes responsibility for delivering
               the data to the user it must also acknowledge the receipt
               of the data.

               Once the TCP endpoint takes responsibility for the data
               it advances RCV.NXT over the data accepted, and adjusts
               RCV.WND as appropriate to the current buffer
               availability.  The total of RCV.NXT and RCV.WND should
               not be reduced.

               A TCP implementation MAY send an ACK segment
               acknowledging RCV.NXT when a valid segment arrives that
               is in the window but not at the left window edge (MAY-
               13).

               Please note the window management suggestions in
               Section 3.7.

               Send an acknowledgment of the form:

                  <SEQ=SND.NXT><ACK=RCV.NXT><CTL=ACK>

               This acknowledgment should be piggybacked on a segment
               being transmitted if possible without incurring undue
               delay.

            CLOSE-WAIT STATE
            CLOSING STATE
            LAST-ACK STATE
            TIME-WAIT STATE

               This should not occur, since a FIN has been received from
               the remote side.  Ignore the segment text.

         eighth, check the FIN bit,

            Do not process the FIN if the state is CLOSED, LISTEN or
            SYN-SENT since the SEG.SEQ cannot be validated; drop the
            segment and return.

            If the FIN bit is set, signal the user "connection closing"
            and return any pending RECEIVEs with same message, advance
            RCV.NXT over the FIN, and send an acknowledgment for the
            FIN.  Note that FIN implies PUSH for any segment text not
            yet delivered to the user.

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               SYN-RECEIVED STATE
               ESTABLISHED STATE

                  Enter the CLOSE-WAIT state.

               FIN-WAIT-1 STATE

                  If our FIN has been ACKed (perhaps in this segment),
                  then enter TIME-WAIT, start the time-wait timer, turn
                  off the other timers; otherwise enter the CLOSING
                  state.

               FIN-WAIT-2 STATE

                  Enter the TIME-WAIT state.  Start the time-wait timer,
                  turn off the other timers.

               CLOSE-WAIT STATE

                  Remain in the CLOSE-WAIT state.

               CLOSING STATE

                  Remain in the CLOSING state.

               LAST-ACK STATE

                  Remain in the LAST-ACK state.

               TIME-WAIT STATE

                  Remain in the TIME-WAIT state.  Restart the 2 MSL
                  time-wait timeout.

         and return.

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   USER TIMEOUT

      USER TIMEOUT

         For any state if the user timeout expires, flush all queues,
         signal the user "error: connection aborted due to user timeout"
         in general and for any outstanding calls, delete the TCB, enter
         the CLOSED state and return.

      RETRANSMISSION TIMEOUT

         For any state if the retransmission timeout expires on a
         segment in the retransmission queue, send the segment at the
         front of the retransmission queue again, reinitialize the
         retransmission timer, and return.

      TIME-WAIT TIMEOUT

         If the time-wait timeout expires on a connection delete the
         TCB, enter the CLOSED state and return.

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3.10.  Glossary

   ACK
           A control bit (acknowledge) occupying no sequence space,
           which indicates that the acknowledgment field of this segment
           specifies the next sequence number the sender of this segment
           is expecting to receive, hence acknowledging receipt of all
           previous sequence numbers.

   connection
           A logical communication path identified by a pair of sockets.

   datagram
           A message sent in a packet switched computer communications
           network.

   Destination Address
           The network layer address of the remote endpoint.

   FIN
           A control bit (finis) occupying one sequence number, which
           indicates that the sender will send no more data or control
           occupying sequence space.

   fragment
           A portion of a logical unit of data, in particular an
           internet fragment is a portion of an internet datagram.

   header
           Control information at the beginning of a message, segment,
           fragment, packet or block of data.

   host
           A computer.  In particular a source or destination of
           messages from the point of view of the communication network.

   Identification
           An Internet Protocol field.  This identifying value assigned
           by the sender aids in assembling the fragments of a datagram.

   internet address
           A network layer address.

   internet datagram
           The unit of data exchanged between an internet module and the
           higher level protocol together with the internet header.

   internet fragment

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           A portion of the data of an internet datagram with an
           internet header.

   IP
           Internet Protocol.  See [1] and [14].

   IRS
           The Initial Receive Sequence number.  The first sequence
           number used by the sender on a connection.

   ISN
           The Initial Sequence Number.  The first sequence number used
           on a connection, (either ISS or IRS).  Selected in a way that
           is unique within a given period of time and is unpredictable
           to attackers.

   ISS
           The Initial Send Sequence number.  The first sequence number
           used by the sender on a connection.

   left sequence
           This is the next sequence number to be acknowledged by the
           data receiving TCP endpoint (or the lowest currently
           unacknowledged sequence number) and is sometimes referred to
           as the left edge of the send window.

   module
           An implementation, usually in software, of a protocol or
           other procedure.

   MSL
           Maximum Segment Lifetime, the time a TCP segment can exist in
           the internetwork system.  Arbitrarily defined to be 2
           minutes.

   octet
           An eight bit byte.

   Options
           An Option field may contain several options, and each option
           may be several octets in length.

   packet
           A package of data with a header that may or may not be
           logically complete.  More often a physical packaging than a
           logical packaging of data.

   port

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           The portion of a connection identifier used for
           demultiplexing connections at an endpoint.

   process
           A program in execution.  A source or destination of data from
           the point of view of the TCP endpoint or other host-to-host
           protocol.

   PUSH
           A control bit occupying no sequence space, indicating that
           this segment contains data that must be pushed through to the
           receiving user.

   RCV.NXT
           receive next sequence number

   RCV.UP
           receive urgent pointer

   RCV.WND
           receive window

   receive next sequence number
           This is the next sequence number the local TCP endpoint is
           expecting to receive.

   receive window
           This represents the sequence numbers the local (receiving)
           TCP endpoint is willing to receive.  Thus, the local TCP
           endpoint considers that segments overlapping the range
           RCV.NXT to RCV.NXT + RCV.WND - 1 carry acceptable data or
           control.  Segments containing sequence numbers entirely
           outside of this range are considered duplicates and
           discarded.

   RST
           A control bit (reset), occupying no sequence space,
           indicating that the receiver should delete the connection
           without further interaction.  The receiver can determine,
           based on the sequence number and acknowledgment fields of the
           incoming segment, whether it should honor the reset command
           or ignore it.  In no case does receipt of a segment
           containing RST give rise to a RST in response.

   SEG.ACK
           segment acknowledgment

   SEG.LEN

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           segment length

   SEG.SEQ
           segment sequence

   SEG.UP
           segment urgent pointer field

   SEG.WND
           segment window field

   segment
           A logical unit of data, in particular a TCP segment is the
           unit of data transferred between a pair of TCP modules.

   segment acknowledgment
           The sequence number in the acknowledgment field of the
           arriving segment.

   segment length
           The amount of sequence number space occupied by a segment,
           including any controls that occupy sequence space.

   segment sequence
           The number in the sequence field of the arriving segment.

   send sequence
           This is the next sequence number the local (sending) TCP
           endpoint will use on the connection.  It is initially
           selected from an initial sequence number curve (ISN) and is
           incremented for each octet of data or sequenced control
           transmitted.

   send window
           This represents the sequence numbers that the remote
           (receiving) TCP endpoint is willing to receive.  It is the
           value of the window field specified in segments from the
           remote (data receiving) TCP endpoint.  The range of new
           sequence numbers that may be emitted by a TCP implementation
           lies between SND.NXT and SND.UNA + SND.WND - 1.
           (Retransmissions of sequence numbers between SND.UNA and
           SND.NXT are expected, of course.)

   SND.NXT
           send sequence

   SND.UNA
           left sequence

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   SND.UP
           send urgent pointer

   SND.WL1
           segment sequence number at last window update

   SND.WL2
           segment acknowledgment number at last window update

   SND.WND
           send window

   socket (or socket number, or socket address, or socket identifier)
           An address that specifically includes a port identifier, that
           is, the concatenation of an Internet Address with a TCP port.

   Source Address
           The network layer address of the sending endpoint.

   SYN
           A control bit in the incoming segment, occupying one sequence
           number, used at the initiation of a connection, to indicate
           where the sequence numbering will start.

   TCB
           Transmission control block, the data structure that records
           the state of a connection.

   TCP
           Transmission Control Protocol: A host-to-host protocol for
           reliable communication in internetwork environments.

   TOS
           Type of Service, an obsoleted IPv4 field.  The same header
           bits currently are used for the Differentiated Services field
           [5] containing the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP)
           value and the 2-bit ECN codepoint [9].

   Type of Service
           An Internet Protocol field that indicates the type of service
           for this internet fragment.

   URG
           A control bit (urgent), occupying no sequence space, used to
           indicate that the receiving user should be notified to do
           urgent processing as long as there is data to be consumed
           with sequence numbers less than the value indicated in the
           urgent pointer.

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   urgent pointer
           A control field meaningful only when the URG bit is on.  This
           field communicates the value of the urgent pointer that
           indicates the data octet associated with the sending user's
           urgent call.

4.  Changes from RFC 793

   This document obsoletes RFC 793 as well as RFC 6093 and 6528, which
   updated 793.  In all cases, only the normative protocol specification
   and requirements have been incorporated into this document, and some
   informational text with background and rationale may not have been
   carried in.  The informational content of those documents is still
   valuable in learning about and understanding TCP, and they are valid
   Informational references, even though their normative content has
   been incorporated into this document.

   The main body of this document was adapted from RFC 793's Section 3,
   titled "FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION", with an attempt to keep formatting
   and layout as close as possible.

   The collection of applicable RFC Errata that have been reported and
   either accepted or held for an update to RFC 793 were incorporated
   (Errata IDs: 573, 574, 700, 701, 1283, 1561, 1562, 1564, 1565, 1571,
   1572, 2296, 2297, 2298, 2748, 2749, 2934, 3213, 3300, 3301, 6222).
   Some errata were not applicable due to other changes (Errata IDs:
   572, 575, 1569, 3305, 3602).

   Changes to the specification of the Urgent Pointer described in RFC
   1122 and 6093 were incorporated.  See RFC 6093 for detailed
   discussion of why these changes were necessary.

   The discussion of the RTO from RFC 793 was updated to refer to RFC
   6298.  The RFC 1122 text on the RTO originally replaced the 793 text,
   however, RFC 2988 should have updated 1122, and has subsequently been
   obsoleted by 6298.

   RFC 1122 contains a collection of other changes and clarifications to
   RFC 793.  The normative items impacting the protocol have been
   incorporated here, though some historically useful implementation
   advice and informative discussion from RFC 1122 is not included here.

   RFC 1122 contains more than just TCP requirements, so this document
   can't obsolete RFC 1122 entirely.  It is only marked as "updating"
   1122, however, it should be understood to effectively obsolete all of
   the RFC 1122 material on TCP.

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   The more secure Initial Sequence Number generation algorithm from RFC
   6528 was incorporated.  See RFC 6528 for discussion of the attacks
   that this mitigates, as well as advice on selecting PRF algorithms
   and managing secret key data.

   A note based on RFC 6429 was added to explicitly clarify that system
   resource management concerns allow connection resources to be
   reclaimed.  RFC 6429 is obsoleted in the sense that this
   clarification has been reflected in this update to the base TCP
   specification now.

   The description of congestion control implementation was added, based
   on the set of documents that are IETF BCP or Standards Track on the
   topic, and the current state of common implementations.

   RFC EDITOR'S NOTE: the content below is for detailed change tracking
   and planning, and not to be included with the final revision of the
   document.

   This document started as draft-eddy-rfc793bis-00, that was merely a
   proposal and rough plan for updating RFC 793.

   The -01 revision of this draft-eddy-rfc793bis incorporates the
   content of RFC 793 Section 3 titled "FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION".
   Other content from RFC 793 has not been incorporated.  The -01
   revision of this document makes some minor formatting changes to the
   RFC 793 content in order to convert the content into XML2RFC format
   and account for left-out parts of RFC 793.  For instance, figure
   numbering differs and some indentation is not exactly the same.

   The -02 revision of draft-eddy-rfc793bis incorporates errata that
   have been verified:

      Errata ID 573: Reported by Bob Braden (note: This errata basically
      is just a reminder that RFC 1122 updates 793.  Some of the
      associated changes are left pending to a separate revision that
      incorporates 1122.  Bob's mention of PUSH in 793 section 2.8 was
      not applicable here because that section was not part of the
      "functional specification".  Also the 1122 text on the
      retransmission timeout also has been updated by subsequent RFCs,
      so the change here deviates from Bob's suggestion to apply the
      1122 text.)
      Errata ID 574: Reported by Yin Shuming
      Errata ID 700: Reported by Yin Shuming
      Errata ID 701: Reported by Yin Shuming
      Errata ID 1283: Reported by Pei-chun Cheng
      Errata ID 1561: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier
      Errata ID 1562: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier

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      Errata ID 1564: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier
      Errata ID 1565: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier
      Errata ID 1571: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier
      Errata ID 1572: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier
      Errata ID 2296: Reported by Vishwas Manral
      Errata ID 2297: Reported by Vishwas Manral
      Errata ID 2298: Reported by Vishwas Manral
      Errata ID 2748: Reported by Mykyta Yevstifeyev
      Errata ID 2749: Reported by Mykyta Yevstifeyev
      Errata ID 2934: Reported by Constantin Hagemeier
      Errata ID 3213: Reported by EugnJun Yi
      Errata ID 3300: Reported by Botong Huang
      Errata ID 3301: Reported by Botong Huang
      Errata ID 3305: Reported by Botong Huang
      Note: Some verified errata were not used in this update, as they
      relate to sections of RFC 793 elided from this document.  These
      include Errata ID 572, 575, and 1569.
      Note: Errata ID 3602 was not applied in this revision as it is
      duplicative of the 1122 corrections.

   Not related to RFC 793 content, this revision also makes small tweaks
   to the introductory text, fixes indentation of the pseudo header
   diagram, and notes that the Security Considerations should also
   include privacy, when this section is written.

   The -03 revision of draft-eddy-rfc793bis revises all discussion of
   the urgent pointer in order to comply with RFC 6093, 1122, and 1011.
   Since 1122 held requirements on the urgent pointer, the full list of
   requirements was brought into an appendix of this document, so that
   it can be updated as-needed.

   The -04 revision of draft-eddy-rfc793bis includes the ISN generation
   changes from RFC 6528.

   The -05 revision of draft-eddy-rfc793bis incorporates MSS
   requirements and definitions from RFC 879, 1122, and 6691, as well as
   option-handling requirements from RFC 1122.

   The -00 revision of draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis incorporates several
   additional clarifications and updates to the section on segmentation,
   many of which are based on feedback from Joe Touch improving from the
   initial text on this in the previous revision.

   The -01 revision incorporates the change to Reserved bits due to ECN,
   as well as many other changes that come from RFC 1122.

   The -02 revision has small formatting modifications in order to
   address xml2rfc warnings about long lines.  It was a quick update to

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   avoid document expiration.  TCPM working group discussion in 2015
   also indicated that that we should not try to add sections on
   implementation advice or similar non-normative information.

   The -03 revision incorporates more content from RFC 1122: Passive
   OPEN Calls, Time-To-Live, Multihoming, IP Options, ICMP messages,
   Data Communications, When to Send Data, When to Send a Window Update,
   Managing the Window, Probing Zero Windows, When to Send an ACK
   Segment.  The section on data communications was re-organized into
   clearer subsections (previously headings were embedded in the 793
   text), and windows management advice from 793 was removed (as
   reviewed by TCPM working group) in favor of the 1122 additions on
   SWS, ZWP, and related topics.

   The -04 revision includes reference to RFC 6429 on the ZWP condition,
   RFC1122 material on TCP Connection Failures, TCP Keep-Alives,
   Acknowledging Queued Segments, and Remote Address Validation.  RTO
   computation is referenced from RFC 6298 rather than RFC 1122.

   The -05 revision includes the requirement to implement TCP congestion
   control with recommendation to implement ECN, the RFC 6633 update to
   1122, which changed the requirement on responding to source quench
   ICMP messages, and discussion of ICMP (and ICMPv6) soft and hard
   errors per RFC 5461 (ICMPv6 handling for TCP doesn't seem to be
   mentioned elsewhere in standards track).

   The -06 revision includes an appendix on "Other Implementation Notes"
   to capture widely-deployed fundamental features that are not
   contained in the RFC series yet.  It also added mention of RFC 6994
   and the IANA TCP parameters registry as a reference.  It includes
   references to RFC 5961 in appropriate places.  The references to TOS
   were changed to DiffServ field, based on reflecting RFC 2474 as well
   as the IPv6 presence of traffic class (carrying DiffServ field)
   rather than TOS.

   The -07 revision includes reference to RFC 6191, updated security
   considerations, discussion of additional implementation
   considerations, and clarification of data on the SYN.

   The -08 revision includes changes based on:

      describing treatment of reserved bits (following TCPM mailing list
      thread from July 2014 on "793bis item - reserved bit behavior"
      addition a brief TCP key concepts section to make up for not
      including the outdated section 2 of RFC 793
      changed "TCP" to "host" to resolve conflict between 1122 wording
      on whether TCP or the network layer chooses an address when
      multihomed

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      fixed/updated definition of options in glossary
      moved note on aggregating ACKs from 1122 to a more appropriate
      location
      resolved notes on IP precedence and security/compartment
      added implementation note on sequence number validation
      added note that PUSH does not apply when Nagle is active
      added 1122 content on asynchronous reports to replace 793 section
      on TCP to user messages

   The -09 revision fixes section numbering problems.

   The -10 revision includes additions to the security considerations
   based on comments from Joe Touch, and suggested edits on RST/FIN
   notification, RFC 2525 reference, and other edits suggested by
   Yuchung Cheng, as well as modifications to DiffServ text from Yuchung
   Cheng and Gorry Fairhurst.

   The -11 revision includes a start at identifying all of the
   requirements text and referencing each instance in the common table
   at the end of the document.

   The -12 revision completes the requirement language indexing started
   in -11 and adds necessary description of the PUSH functionality that
   was missing.

   The -13 revision contains only changes in the inline editor notes.

   The -14 revision includes updates with regard to several comments
   from the mailing list, including editorial fixes, adding IANA
   considerations for the header flags, improving figure title
   placement, and breaking up the "Terminology" section into more
   appropriately titled subsections.

   The -15 revision has many technical and editorial corrections from
   Gorry Fairhurst's review, and subsequent discussion on the TCPM list,
   as well as some other collected clarifications and improvements from
   mailing list discussion.

   The -16 revision addresses several discussions that rose from
   additional reviews and follow-up on some of Gorry Fairhurst's
   comments from revision 14.

   The -17 revision includes errata 6222 from Charles Deng, update to
   the key words boilerplate, updated description of the header flags
   registry changes, and clarification about connections rather than
   users in the discussion of OPEN calls.

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   The -18 revision includes editorial changes to the IANA
   considerations, based on comments from Richard Scheffenegger at the
   IETF 108 TCPM virtual meeting.

   The -19 revision includes editorial changes from Errata 6281 and 6282
   reported by Merlin Buge.  It also includes WGLC changes noted by
   Mohamed Boucadair, Rahul Jadhav, Praveen Balasubramanian, Matt Olson,
   Yi Huang, Joe Touch, and Juhamatti Kuusisaari.

   The -20 revision includes text on congestion control based on mailing
   list and meeting discussion, put together in its final form by Markku
   Kojo.  It also clarifies that SACK, WS, and TS options are
   recommended for high performance, but not needed for basic
   interoperability.  It also clarifies that the length field is
   required for new TCP options.

   Some other suggested changes that will not be incorporated in this
   793 update unless TCPM consensus changes with regard to scope are:

   1.  Tony Sabatini's suggestion for describing DO field
   2.  Per discussion with Joe Touch (TAPS list, 6/20/2015), the
       description of the API could be revisited
   3.  Reducing the R2 value for SYNs has been suggested as a possible
       topic for future consideration.

   Early in the process of updating RFC 793, Scott Brim mentioned that
   this should include a PERPASS/privacy review.  This may be something
   for the chairs or AD to request during WGLC or IETF LC.

5.  IANA Considerations

   In the "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Header Flags" registry,
   IANA is asked to make several changes described in this section.

   RFC 3168 originally created this registry, but only populated it with
   the new bits defined in RFC 3168, neglecting the other bits that had
   previously been described in RFC 793 and other documents.  Bit 7 has
   since also been updated by RFC 8311.

   The "Bit" column is renamed below as the "Bit Offset" column, since
   it references each header flag's offset within the 16-bit aligned
   view of the TCP header in Figure 1.  The bits in offsets 0 through 4
   are the TCP segment Data Offset field, and not header flags.

   IANA should add a column for "Assignment Notes".

   IANA should assign values indicated below.

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   TCP Header Flags

   Bit      Name                                    Reference       Assignment Notes
  Offset
   ---      ----                                    ---------       ----------------
   4        Reserved for future use                 (this document)
   5        Reserved for future use                 (this document)
   6        Reserved for future use                 (this document)
   7        Reserved for future use                 [RFC8311]       Previously used by Historic [RFC3540] as NS (Nonce Sum)
   8        CWR (Congestion Window Reduced)         [RFC3168]
   9        ECE (ECN-Echo)                          [RFC3168]
   10       Urgent Pointer field significant (URG)  (this document)
   11       Acknowledgment field significant (ACK)  (this document)
   12       Push Function (PSH)                     (this document)
   13       Reset the connection (RST)              (this document)
   14       Synchronize sequence numbers (SYN)      (this document)
   15       No more data from sender (FIN)          (this document)

   This TCP Header Flags registry should also be moved to a sub-registry
   under the global "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Parameters
   registry (https://www.iana.org/assignments/tcp-parameters/tcp-
   parameters.xhtml).

   The registry's Registration Procedure should remain Standards Action,
   but the Reference can be updated to this document, and the Note
   removed.

6.  Security and Privacy Considerations

   The TCP design includes only rudimentary security features that
   improve the robustness and reliability of connections and application
   data transfer, but there are no built-in cryptographic capabilities
   to support any form of privacy, authentication, or other typical
   security functions.  Non-cryptographic enhancements (e.g. [37]) have
   been developed to improve robustness of TCP connections to particular
   types of attacks, but the applicability and protections of non-
   cryptographic enhancements are limited (e.g. see section 1.1 of
   [37]).  Applications typically utilize lower-layer (e.g.  IPsec) and
   upper-layer (e.g.  TLS) protocols to provide security and privacy for
   TCP connections and application data carried in TCP.  Methods based
   on TCP options have been developed as well, to support some security
   capabilities.

   In order to fully protect TCP connections (including their control
   flags) IPsec or the TCP Authentication Option (TCP-AO) [36] are the
   only current effective methods.  Other methods discussed in this
   section may protect the payload, but either only a subset of the
   fields (e.g. tcpcrypt [59]) or none at all (e.g.  TLS).  Other

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   security features that have been added to TCP (e.g.  ISN generation,
   sequence number checks, and others) are only capable of partially
   hindering attacks.

   Applications using long-lived TCP flows have been vulnerable to
   attacks that exploit the processing of control flags described in
   earlier TCP specifications [30].  TCP-MD5 was a commonly implemented
   TCP option to support authentication for some of these connections,
   but had flaws and is now deprecated.  TCP-AO provides a capability to
   protect long-lived TCP connections from attacks, and has superior
   properties to TCP-MD5.  It does not provide any privacy for
   application data, nor for the TCP headers.

   The "tcpcrypt" [59] Experimental extension to TCP provides the
   ability to cryptographically protect connection data.  Metadata
   aspects of the TCP flow are still visible, but the application stream
   is well-protected.  Within the TCP header, only the urgent pointer
   and FIN flag are protected through tcpcrypt.

   The TCP Roadmap [48] includes notes about several RFCs related to TCP
   security.  Many of the enhancements provided by these RFCs have been
   integrated into the present document, including ISN generation,
   mitigating blind in-window attacks, and improving handling of soft
   errors and ICMP packets.  These are all discussed in greater detail
   in the referenced RFCs that originally described the changes needed
   to earlier TCP specifications.  Additionally, see RFC 6093 [38] for
   discussion of security considerations related to the urgent pointer
   field, that has been deprecated.

   Since TCP is often used for bulk transfer flows, some attacks are
   possible that abuse the TCP congestion control logic.  An example is
   "ACK-division" attacks.  Updates that have been made to the TCP
   congestion control specifications include mechanisms like Appropriate
   Byte Counting (ABC) [26] that act as mitigations to these attacks.

   Other attacks are focused on exhausting the resources of a TCP
   server.  Examples include SYN flooding [29] or wasting resources on
   non-progressing connections [40].  Operating systems commonly
   implement mitigations for these attacks.  Some common defenses also
   utilize proxies, stateful firewalls, and other technologies outside
   of the end-host TCP implementation.

7.  Acknowledgements

   This document is largely a revision of RFC 793, which Jon Postel was
   the editor of.  Due to his excellent work, it was able to last for
   three decades before we felt the need to revise it.

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   Andre Oppermann was a contributor and helped to edit the first
   revision of this document.

   We are thankful for the assistance of the IETF TCPM working group
   chairs, over the course of work on this document:

      Michael Scharf
      Yoshifumi Nishida
      Pasi Sarolahti
      Michael Tuexen

   During the discussions of this work on the TCPM mailing list and in
   working group meetings, helpful comments, critiques, and reviews were
   received from (listed alphabetically by last name): Praveen
   Balasubramanian, David Borman, Mohamed Boucadair, Bob Briscoe, Neal
   Cardwell, Yuchung Cheng, Martin Duke, Ted Faber, Gorry Fairhurst,
   Fernando Gont, Rodney Grimes, Yi Huang, Rahul Jadhav, Markku Kojo,
   Mike Kosek, Juhamatti Kuusisaari, Kevin Lahey, Kevin Mason, Matt
   Mathis, Jonathan Morton, Matt Olson, Tommy Pauly, Tom Petch, Hagen
   Paul Pfeifer, Anthony Sabatini, Michael Scharf, Greg Skinner, Joe
   Touch, Michael Tuexen, Reji Varghese, Tim Wicinski, Lloyd Wood, and
   Alex Zimmermann.

   Joe Touch provided additional help in clarifying the description of
   segment size parameters and PMTUD/PLPMTUD recommendations.  Markku
   Kojo helped put together the text in the section on TCP Congestion
   Control.

   This document includes content from errata that were reported by
   (listed chronologically): Yin Shuming, Bob Braden, Morris M.  Keesan,
   Pei-chun Cheng, Constantin Hagemeier, Vishwas Manral, Mykyta
   Yevstifeyev, EungJun Yi, Botong Huang, Charles Deng, Merlin Buge.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [1]        Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc791>.

   [2]        Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery", RFC 1191,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC1191, November 1990,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1191>.

   [3]        McCann, J., Deering, S., and J. Mogul, "Path MTU Discovery
              for IP version 6", RFC 1981, DOI 10.17487/RFC1981, August
              1996, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1981>.

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   [4]        Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [5]        Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F., and D. Black,
              "Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS
              Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2474, December 1998,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2474>.

   [6]        Borman, D., Deering, S., and R. Hinden, "IPv6 Jumbograms",
              RFC 2675, DOI 10.17487/RFC2675, August 1999,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2675>.

   [7]        Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles", BCP 41,
              RFC 2914, DOI 10.17487/RFC2914, September 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2914>.

   [8]        Lahey, K., "TCP Problems with Path MTU Discovery",
              RFC 2923, DOI 10.17487/RFC2923, September 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2923>.

   [9]        Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
              of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
              RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.

   [10]       Floyd, S. and M. Allman, "Specifying New Congestion
              Control Algorithms", BCP 133, RFC 5033,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5033, August 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5033>.

   [11]       Paxson, V., Allman, M., Chu, J., and M. Sargent,
              "Computing TCP's Retransmission Timer", RFC 6298,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6298, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6298>.

   [12]       Gont, F., "Deprecation of ICMP Source Quench Messages",
              RFC 6633, DOI 10.17487/RFC6633, May 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6633>.

   [13]       Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

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   [14]       Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.

   [15]       Allman, M., "Requirements for Time-Based Loss Detection",
              BCP 233, RFC 8961, DOI 10.17487/RFC8961, November 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8961>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [16]       Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7,
              RFC 793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc793>.

   [17]       Nagle, J., "Congestion Control in IP/TCP Internetworks",
              RFC 896, DOI 10.17487/RFC0896, January 1984,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc896>.

   [18]       Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
              Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC1122, October 1989,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1122>.

   [19]       Almquist, P., "Type of Service in the Internet Protocol
              Suite", RFC 1349, DOI 10.17487/RFC1349, July 1992,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1349>.

   [20]       Braden, R., "T/TCP -- TCP Extensions for Transactions
              Functional Specification", RFC 1644, DOI 10.17487/RFC1644,
              July 1994, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1644>.

   [21]       Mathis, M., Mahdavi, J., Floyd, S., and A. Romanow, "TCP
              Selective Acknowledgment Options", RFC 2018,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2018, October 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2018>.

   [22]       Paxson, V., Allman, M., Dawson, S., Fenner, W., Griner,
              J., Heavens, I., Lahey, K., Semke, J., and B. Volz, "Known
              TCP Implementation Problems", RFC 2525,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2525, March 1999,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2525>.

   [23]       Xiao, X., Hannan, A., Paxson, V., and E. Crabbe, "TCP
              Processing of the IPv4 Precedence Field", RFC 2873,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2873, June 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2873>.

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   [24]       Floyd, S., Mahdavi, J., Mathis, M., and M. Podolsky, "An
              Extension to the Selective Acknowledgement (SACK) Option
              for TCP", RFC 2883, DOI 10.17487/RFC2883, July 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2883>.

   [25]       Balakrishnan, H., Padmanabhan, V., Fairhurst, G., and M.
              Sooriyabandara, "TCP Performance Implications of Network
              Path Asymmetry", BCP 69, RFC 3449, DOI 10.17487/RFC3449,
              December 2002, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3449>.

   [26]       Allman, M., "TCP Congestion Control with Appropriate Byte
              Counting (ABC)", RFC 3465, DOI 10.17487/RFC3465, February
              2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3465>.

   [27]       Fenner, B., "Experimental Values In IPv4, IPv6, ICMPv4,
              ICMPv6, UDP, and TCP Headers", RFC 4727,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4727, November 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4727>.

   [28]       Mathis, M. and J. Heffner, "Packetization Layer Path MTU
              Discovery", RFC 4821, DOI 10.17487/RFC4821, March 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4821>.

   [29]       Eddy, W., "TCP SYN Flooding Attacks and Common
              Mitigations", RFC 4987, DOI 10.17487/RFC4987, August 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4987>.

   [30]       Touch, J., "Defending TCP Against Spoofing Attacks",
              RFC 4953, DOI 10.17487/RFC4953, July 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4953>.

   [31]       Culley, P., Elzur, U., Recio, R., Bailey, S., and J.
              Carrier, "Marker PDU Aligned Framing for TCP
              Specification", RFC 5044, DOI 10.17487/RFC5044, October
              2007, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5044>.

   [32]       Gont, F., "TCP's Reaction to Soft Errors", RFC 5461,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5461, February 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5461>.

   [33]       StJohns, M., Atkinson, R., and G. Thomas, "Common
              Architecture Label IPv6 Security Option (CALIPSO)",
              RFC 5570, DOI 10.17487/RFC5570, July 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5570>.

   [34]       Allman, M., Paxson, V., and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion
              Control", RFC 5681, DOI 10.17487/RFC5681, September 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5681>.

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   [35]       Sandlund, K., Pelletier, G., and L-E. Jonsson, "The RObust
              Header Compression (ROHC) Framework", RFC 5795,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5795, March 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5795>.

   [36]       Touch, J., Mankin, A., and R. Bonica, "The TCP
              Authentication Option", RFC 5925, DOI 10.17487/RFC5925,
              June 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5925>.

   [37]       Ramaiah, A., Stewart, R., and M. Dalal, "Improving TCP's
              Robustness to Blind In-Window Attacks", RFC 5961,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5961, August 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5961>.

   [38]       Gont, F. and A. Yourtchenko, "On the Implementation of the
              TCP Urgent Mechanism", RFC 6093, DOI 10.17487/RFC6093,
              January 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6093>.

   [39]       Gont, F., "Reducing the TIME-WAIT State Using TCP
              Timestamps", BCP 159, RFC 6191, DOI 10.17487/RFC6191,
              April 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6191>.

   [40]       Bashyam, M., Jethanandani, M., and A. Ramaiah, "TCP Sender
              Clarification for Persist Condition", RFC 6429,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6429, December 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6429>.

   [41]       Gont, F. and S. Bellovin, "Defending against Sequence
              Number Attacks", RFC 6528, DOI 10.17487/RFC6528, February
              2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6528>.

   [42]       Borman, D., "TCP Options and Maximum Segment Size (MSS)",
              RFC 6691, DOI 10.17487/RFC6691, July 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6691>.

   [43]       Touch, J., "Updated Specification of the IPv4 ID Field",
              RFC 6864, DOI 10.17487/RFC6864, February 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6864>.

   [44]       Touch, J., "Shared Use of Experimental TCP Options",
              RFC 6994, DOI 10.17487/RFC6994, August 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6994>.

   [45]       McPherson, D., Oran, D., Thaler, D., and E. Osterweil,
              "Architectural Considerations of IP Anycast", RFC 7094,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7094, January 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7094>.

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   [46]       Borman, D., Braden, B., Jacobson, V., and R.
              Scheffenegger, Ed., "TCP Extensions for High Performance",
              RFC 7323, DOI 10.17487/RFC7323, September 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7323>.

   [47]       Cheng, Y., Chu, J., Radhakrishnan, S., and A. Jain, "TCP
              Fast Open", RFC 7413, DOI 10.17487/RFC7413, December 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7413>.

   [48]       Duke, M., Braden, R., Eddy, W., Blanton, E., and A.
              Zimmermann, "A Roadmap for Transmission Control Protocol
              (TCP) Specification Documents", RFC 7414,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7414, February 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7414>.

   [49]       Black, D., Ed. and P. Jones, "Differentiated Services
              (Diffserv) and Real-Time Communication", RFC 7657,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7657, November 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7657>.

   [50]       Fairhurst, G. and M. Welzl, "The Benefits of Using
              Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)", RFC 8087,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8087, March 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8087>.

   [51]       Fairhurst, G., Ed., Trammell, B., Ed., and M. Kuehlewind,
              Ed., "Services Provided by IETF Transport Protocols and
              Congestion Control Mechanisms", RFC 8095,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8095, March 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8095>.

   [52]       Welzl, M., Tuexen, M., and N. Khademi, "On the Usage of
              Transport Features Provided by IETF Transport Protocols",
              RFC 8303, DOI 10.17487/RFC8303, February 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8303>.

   [53]       Chown, T., Loughney, J., and T. Winters, "IPv6 Node
              Requirements", BCP 220, RFC 8504, DOI 10.17487/RFC8504,
              January 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8504>.

   [54]       Ford, A., Raiciu, C., Handley, M., Bonaventure, O., and C.
              Paasch, "TCP Extensions for Multipath Operation with
              Multiple Addresses", RFC 8684, DOI 10.17487/RFC8684, March
              2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8684>.

   [55]       IANA, "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Parameters,
              https://www.iana.org/assignments/tcp-parameters/tcp-
              parameters.xhtml", 2019.

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   [56]       IANA, "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Header Flags,
              https://www.iana.org/assignments/tcp-header-flags/tcp-
              header-flags.xhtml", 2019.

   [57]       Gont, F., "Processing of IP Security/Compartment and
              Precedence Information by TCP", draft-gont-tcpm-tcp-
              seccomp-prec-00 (work in progress), March 2012.

   [58]       Gont, F. and D. Borman, "On the Validation of TCP Sequence
              Numbers", draft-gont-tcpm-tcp-seq-validation-02 (work in
              progress), March 2015.

   [59]       Bittau, A., Giffin, D., Handley, M., Mazieres, D., Slack,
              Q., and E. Smith, "Cryptographic protection of TCP Streams
              (tcpcrypt)", draft-ietf-tcpinc-tcpcrypt-09 (work in
              progress), November 2017.

   [60]       Touch, J. and W. Eddy, "TCP Extended Data Offset Option",
              draft-ietf-tcpm-tcp-edo-10 (work in progress), July 2018.

   [61]       Minshall, G., "A Proposed Modification to Nagle's
              Algorithm", draft-minshall-nagle-01 (work in progress),
              June 1999.

   [62]       Dalal, Y. and C. Sunshine, "Connection Management in
              Transport Protocols", Computer Networks Vol. 2, No. 6, pp.
              454-473, December 1978.

   [63]       Faber, T., Touch, J., and W. Yui, "The TIME-WAIT state in
              TCP and Its Effect on Busy Servers", Proceedings of IEEE
              INFOCOM pp. 1573-1583, March 1999.

Appendix A.  Other Implementation Notes

   This section includes additional notes and references on TCP
   implementation decisions that are currently not a part of the RFC
   series or included within the TCP standard.  These items can be
   considered by implementers, but there was not yet a consensus to
   include them in the standard.

A.1.  IP Security Compartment and Precedence

   The IPv4 specification [1] includes a precedence value in the (now
   obsoleted) Type of Service field (TOS) field.  It was modified in
   [19], and then obsoleted by the definition of Differentiated Services
   (DiffServ) [5].  Setting and conveying TOS between the network layer,
   TCP implementation, and applications is obsolete, and replaced by
   DiffServ in the current TCP specification.

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   RFC 793 requires checking the IP security compartment and precedence
   on incoming TCP segments for consistency within a connection, and
   with application requests.  Each of these aspects of IP have become
   outdated, without specific updates to RFC 793.  The issues with
   precedence were fixed by [23], which is Standards Track, and so this
   present TCP specification includes those changes.  However, the state
   of IP security options that may be used by MLS systems is not as
   clean.

   Resetting connections when incoming packets do not meet expected
   security compartment or precedence expectations has been recognized
   as a possible attack vector [57], and there has been discussion about
   amending the TCP specification to prevent connections from being
   aborted due to non-matching IP security compartment and DiffServ
   codepoint values.

A.1.1.  Precedence

   In DiffServ the former precedence values are treated as Class
   Selector codepoints, and methods for compatible treatment are
   described in the DiffServ architecture.  The RFC 793/1122 TCP
   specification includes logic intending to have connections use the
   highest precedence requested by either endpoint application, and to
   keep the precedence consistent throughout a connection.  This logic
   from the obsolete TOS is not applicable for DiffServ, and should not
   be included in TCP implementations, though changes to DiffServ values
   within a connection are discouraged.  For discussion of this, see RFC
   7657 (sec 5.1, 5.3, and 6) [49].

   The obsoleted TOS processing rules in TCP assumed bidirectional (or
   symmetric) precedence values used on a connection, but the DiffServ
   architecture is asymmetric.  Problems with the old TCP logic in this
   regard were described in [23] and the solution described is to ignore
   IP precedence in TCP.  Since RFC 2873 is a Standards Track document
   (although not marked as updating RFC 793), current implementations
   are expected to be robust to these conditions.  Note that the
   DiffServ field value used in each direction is a part of the
   interface between TCP and the network layer, and values in use can be
   indicated both ways between TCP and the application.

A.1.2.  MLS Systems

   The IP security option (IPSO) and compartment defined in [1] was
   refined in RFC 1038 that was later obsoleted by RFC 1108.  The
   Commercial IP Security Option (CIPSO) is defined in FIPS-188, and is
   supported by some vendors and operating systems.  RFC 1108 is now
   Historic, though RFC 791 itself has not been updated to remove the IP
   security option.  For IPv6, a similar option (CALIPSO) has been

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   defined [33].  RFC 793 includes logic that includes the IP security/
   compartment information in treatment of TCP segments.  References to
   the IP "security/compartment" in this document may be relevant for
   Multi-Level Secure (MLS) system implementers, but can be ignored for
   non-MLS implementations, consistent with running code on the
   Internet.  See Appendix A.1 for further discussion.  Note that RFC
   5570 describes some MLS networking scenarios where IPSO, CIPSO, or
   CALIPSO may be used.  In these special cases, TCP implementers should
   see section 7.3.1 of RFC 5570, and follow the guidance in that
   document.

A.2.  Sequence Number Validation

   There are cases where the TCP sequence number validation rules can
   prevent ACK fields from being processed.  This can result in
   connection issues, as described in [58], which includes descriptions
   of potential problems in conditions of simultaneous open, self-
   connects, simultaneous close, and simultaneous window probes.  The
   document also describes potential changes to the TCP specification to
   mitigate the issue by expanding the acceptable sequence numbers.

   In Internet usage of TCP, these conditions are rarely occurring.
   Common operating systems include different alternative mitigations,
   and the standard has not been updated yet to codify one of them, but
   implementers should consider the problems described in [58].

A.3.  Nagle Modification

   In common operating systems, both the Nagle algorithm and delayed
   acknowledgements are implemented and enabled by default.  TCP is used
   by many applications that have a request-response style of
   communication, where the combination of the Nagle algorithm and
   delayed acknowledgements can result in poor application performance.
   A modification to the Nagle algorithm is described in [61] that
   improves the situation for these applications.

   This modification is implemented in some common operating systems,
   and does not impact TCP interoperability.  Additionally, many
   applications simply disable Nagle, since this is generally supported
   by a socket option.  The TCP standard has not been updated to include
   this Nagle modification, but implementers may find it beneficial to
   consider.

A.4.  Low Water Mark Settings

   Some operating system kernel TCP implementations include socket
   options that allow specifying the number of bytes in the buffer until

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   the socket layer will pass sent data to TCP (SO_SNDLOWAT) or to the
   application on receiving (SO_RCVLOWAT).

   In addition, another socket option (TCP_NOTSENT_LOWAT) can be used to
   control the amount of unsent bytes in the write queue.  This can help
   a sending TCP application to avoid creating large amounts of buffered
   data (and corresponding latency).  As an example, this may be useful
   for applications that are multiplexing data from multiple upper level
   streams onto a connection, especially when streams may be a mix of
   interactive / real-time and bulk data transfer.

Appendix B.  TCP Requirement Summary

   This section is adapted from RFC 1122.

   Note that there is no requirement related to PLPMTUD in this list,
   but that PLPMTUD is recommended.

                                                  |        | | | |S| |
                                                  |        | | | |H| |F
                                                  |        | | | |O|M|o
                                                  |        | |S| |U|U|o
                                                  |        | |H| |L|S|t
                                                  |        |M|O| |D|T|n
                                                  |        |U|U|M| | |o
                                                  |        |S|L|A|N|N|t
                                                  |        |T|D|Y|O|O|t
 FEATURE                                          | ReqID  | | | |T|T|e
 -------------------------------------------------|--------|-|-|-|-|-|--
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Push flag                                        |        | | | | | |
   Aggregate or queue un-pushed data              | MAY-16 | | |x| | |
   Sender collapse successive PSH flags           | SHLD-27| |x| | | |
   SEND call can specify PUSH                     | MAY-15 | | |x| | |
     If cannot: sender buffer indefinitely        | MUST-60| | | | |x|
     If cannot: PSH last segment                  | MUST-61|x| | | | |
   Notify receiving ALP of PSH                    | MAY-17 | | |x| | |1
   Send max size segment when possible            | SHLD-28| |x| | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Window                                           |        | | | | | |
   Treat as unsigned number                       | MUST-1 |x| | | | |
   Handle as 32-bit number                        | REC-1  | |x| | | |
   Shrink window from right                       | SHLD-14| | | |x| |
   - Send new data when window shrinks            | SHLD-15| | | |x| |
   - Retransmit old unacked data within window    | SHLD-16| |x| | | |
   - Time out conn for data past right edge       | SHLD-17| | | |x| |
   Robust against shrinking window                | MUST-34|x| | | | |

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   Receiver's window closed indefinitely          | MAY-8  | | |x| | |
   Use standard probing logic                     | MUST-35|x| | | | |
   Sender probe zero window                       | MUST-36|x| | | | |
     First probe after RTO                        | SHLD-29| |x| | | |
     Exponential backoff                          | SHLD-30| |x| | | |
   Allow window stay zero indefinitely            | MUST-37|x| | | | |
   Retransmit old data beyond SND.UNA+SND.WND     | MAY-7  | | |x| | |
   Process RST and URG even with zero window      | MUST-66|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Urgent Data                                      |        | | | | | |
   Include support for urgent pointer             | MUST-30|x| | | | |
   Pointer indicates first non-urgent octet       | MUST-62|x| | | | |
   Arbitrary length urgent data sequence          | MUST-31|x| | | | |
   Inform ALP asynchronously of urgent data       | MUST-32|x| | | | |1
   ALP can learn if/how much urgent data Q'd      | MUST-33|x| | | | |1
   ALP employ the urgent mechanism                | SHLD-13| | | |x| |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 TCP Options                                      |        | | | | | |
   Support the mandatory option set               | MUST-4 |x| | | | |
   Receive TCP option in any segment              | MUST-5 |x| | | | |
   Ignore unsupported options                     | MUST-6 |x| | | | |
   Include length for all options except EOL+NOP  | MUST-68|x| | | | |
   Cope with illegal option length                | MUST-7 |x| | | | |
   Process options regardless of word alignment   | MUST-64|x| | | | |
   Implement sending & receiving MSS option       | MUST-14|x| | | | |
   IPv4 Send MSS option unless 536                | SHLD-5 | |x| | | |
   IPv6 Send MSS option unless 1220               | SHLD-5 | |x| | | |
   Send MSS option always                         | MAY-3  | | |x| | |
   IPv4 Send-MSS default is 536                   | MUST-15|x| | | | |
   IPv6 Send-MSS default is 1220                  | MUST-15|x| | | | |
   Calculate effective send seg size              | MUST-16|x| | | | |
   MSS accounts for varying MTU                   | SHLD-6 | |x| | | |
   MSS not sent on non-SYN segments               | MUST-65| | | | |x|
   MSS value based on MMS_R                       | MUST-67|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 TCP Checksums                                    |        | | | | | |
   Sender compute checksum                        | MUST-2 |x| | | | |
   Receiver check checksum                        | MUST-3 |x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 ISN Selection                                    |        | | | | | |
   Include a clock-driven ISN generator component | MUST-8 |x| | | | |
   Secure ISN generator with a PRF component      | SHLD-1 | |x| | | |
   PRF computable from outside the host           | MUST-9 | | | | |x|
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Opening Connections                              |        | | | | | |
   Support simultaneous open attempts             | MUST-10|x| | | | |
   SYN-RECEIVED remembers last state              | MUST-11|x| | | | |
   Passive Open call interfere with others        | MUST-41| | | | |x|

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   Function: simultan. LISTENs for same port      | MUST-42|x| | | | |
   Ask IP for src address for SYN if necc.        | MUST-44|x| | | | |
     Otherwise, use local addr of conn.           | MUST-45|x| | | | |
   OPEN to broadcast/multicast IP Address         | MUST-46| | | | |x|
   Silently discard seg to bcast/mcast addr       | MUST-57|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Closing Connections                              |        | | | | | |
   RST can contain data                           | SHLD-2 | |x| | | |
   Inform application of aborted conn             | MUST-12|x| | | | |
   Half-duplex close connections                  | MAY-1  | | |x| | |
     Send RST to indicate data lost               | SHLD-3 | |x| | | |
   In TIME-WAIT state for 2MSL seconds            | MUST-13|x| | | | |
     Accept SYN from TIME-WAIT state              | MAY-2  | | |x| | |
     Use Timestamps to reduce TIME-WAIT           | SHLD-4 | |x| | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Retransmissions                                  |        | | | | | |
   Implement exponential backoff, slow start, and | MUST-19|x| | | | |
     congestion avoidance                         |        | | | | | |
   Retransmit with same IP ident                  | MAY-4  | | |x| | |
   Karn's algorithm                               | MUST-18|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Generating ACKs:                                 |        | | | | | |
   Aggregate whenever possible                    | MUST-58|x| | | | |
   Queue out-of-order segments                    | SHLD-31| |x| | | |
   Process all Q'd before send ACK                | MUST-59|x| | | | |
   Send ACK for out-of-order segment              | MAY-13 | | |x| | |
   Delayed ACKs                                   | SHLD-18| |x| | | |
     Delay < 0.5 seconds                          | MUST-40|x| | | | |
     Every 2nd full-sized segment ACK'd           | SHLD-19|x| | | | |
   Receiver SWS-Avoidance Algorithm               | MUST-39|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Sending data                                     |        | | | | | |
   Configurable TTL                               | MUST-49|x| | | | |
   Sender SWS-Avoidance Algorithm                 | MUST-38|x| | | | |
   Nagle algorithm                                | SHLD-7 | |x| | | |
     Application can disable Nagle algorithm      | MUST-17|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Connection Failures:                             |        | | | | | |
   Negative advice to IP on R1 retxs              | MUST-20|x| | | | |
   Close connection on R2 retxs                   | MUST-20|x| | | | |
   ALP can set R2                                 | MUST-21|x| | | | |1
   Inform ALP of  R1<=retxs<R2                    | SHLD-9 | |x| | | |1
   Recommended value for R1                       | SHLD-10| |x| | | |
   Recommended value for R2                       | SHLD-11| |x| | | |
   Same mechanism for SYNs                        | MUST-22|x| | | | |
     R2 at least 3 minutes for SYN                | MUST-23|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Send Keep-alive Packets:                         | MAY-5  | | |x| | |

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   - Application can request                      | MUST-24|x| | | | |
   - Default is "off"                             | MUST-25|x| | | | |
   - Only send if idle for interval               | MUST-26|x| | | | |
   - Interval configurable                        | MUST-27|x| | | | |
   - Default at least 2 hrs.                      | MUST-28|x| | | | |
   - Tolerant of lost ACKs                        | MUST-29|x| | | | |
   - Send with no data                            | SHLD-12| |x| | | |
   - Configurable to send garbage octet           | MAY-6  | | |x| | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 IP Options                                       |        | | | | | |
   Ignore options TCP doesn't understand          | MUST-50|x| | | | |
   Time Stamp support                             | MAY-10 | | |x| | |
   Record Route support                           | MAY-11 | | |x| | |
   Source Route:                                  |        | | | | | |
     ALP can specify                              | MUST-51|x| | | | |1
       Overrides src rt in datagram               | MUST-52|x| | | | |
     Build return route from src rt               | MUST-53|x| | | | |
     Later src route overrides                    | SHLD-24| |x| | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Receiving ICMP Messages from IP                  | MUST-54|x| | | | |
   Dest. Unreach (0,1,5) => inform ALP            | SHLD-25| |x| | | |
   Dest. Unreach (0,1,5) => abort conn            | MUST-56| | | | |x|
   Dest. Unreach (2-4) => abort conn              | SHLD-26| |x| | | |
   Source Quench => silent discard                | MUST-55|x| | | | |
   Time Exceeded => tell ALP, don't abort         | MUST-56| | | | |x|
   Param Problem => tell ALP, don't abort         | MUST-56| | | | |x|
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Address Validation                               |        | | | | | |
   Reject OPEN call to invalid IP address         | MUST-46|x| | | | |
   Reject SYN from invalid IP address             | MUST-63|x| | | | |
   Silently discard SYN to bcast/mcast addr       | MUST-57|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 TCP/ALP Interface Services                       |        | | | | | |
   Error Report mechanism                         | MUST-47|x| | | | |
   ALP can disable Error Report Routine           | SHLD-20| |x| | | |
   ALP can specify DiffServ field for sending     | MUST-48|x| | | | |
     Passed unchanged to IP                       | SHLD-22| |x| | | |
   ALP can change DiffServ field during connection| SHLD-21| |x| | | |
   ALP generally changing DiffServ during conn.   | SHLD-23| | | |x| |
   Pass received DiffServ field up to ALP         | MAY-9  | | |x| | |
   FLUSH call                                     | MAY-14 | | |x| | |
   Optional local IP addr parm. in OPEN           | MUST-43|x| | | | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 RFC 5961 Support:                                |        | | | | | |
   Implement data injection protection            | MAY-12 | | |x| | |
                                                  |        | | | | | |
 Explicit Congestion Notification:                |        | | | | | |
   Support ECN                                    | SHLD-8 | |x| | | |

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 -------------------------------------------------|--------|-|-|-|-|-|-

   FOOTNOTES: (1) "ALP" means Application-Layer Program.

Author's Address

   Wesley M. Eddy (editor)
   MTI Systems
   US

   Email: wes@mti-systems.com

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