Search RFCs

RFC Editor

File formats:

Status:

EXPERIMENTAL

Authors:

A. Zimmermann
A. Hannemann

Stream:

IETF

Source:

tcpm (wit)

Cite this RFC:TXT  | XML  |  BibTeX

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC6069

Discuss this RFC: Send questions or comments to the mailing listtcpm@ietf.org

Other actions:Submit Errata  | Find IPR Disclosures from the IETF  | View History of RFC 6069

Abstract

Disruptions in end-to-end path connectivity, which last longer thanone retransmission timeout, cause suboptimal TCP performance. Thereason for this performance degradation is that TCP interpretssegment loss induced by long connectivity disruptions as a sign ofcongestion, resulting in repeated retransmission timer backoffs.This, in turn, leads to a delayed detection of the re-establishmentof the connection since TCP waits for the next retransmission timeoutbefore it attempts a retransmission.

This document proposes an algorithm to make TCP more robust to longconnectivity disruptions (TCP-LCD). It describes how standard ICMPmessages can be exploited during timeout-based loss recovery todisambiguate true congestion loss from non-congestion loss caused byconnectivity disruptions. Moreover, a reversion strategy of theretransmission timer is specified that enables a more promptdetection of whether or not the connectivity to a previouslydisconnected peer node has been restored. TCP-LCD is a TCP sender-only modification that effectively improves TCP performance in thecase of connectivity disruptions. This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

For the definition ofStatus,seeRFC 2026.

For the definition ofStream, seeRFC 8729.