Chapter 9. TCP and UDP

Terms you'll need to understand:

• Buffered Transfer

• Congestion Window

• Full-Duplex

• Large Window

• Piggybacking

• TCP Segment

• Three-Way Handshake

• Virtual Circuit

• Window Advertisement

Concepts you'll need to master:

• Distinguish among protocol characteristics of the transport layer

• Explain the fundamentals of TCP and UDP

TCP and UDP are the two main protocols that operate at the Transport layer of the TCP/IP model. The Transport layer provides an end-to-end service for application data ”that is, from the source to the destination. TCP and UDP are both delivered as part of the Solaris 9 operating system kernel.

Transport layer protocols communicate via port numbers , unlike the Internet layer, which uses IP addresses, and the Network Interface layer, which uses ethernet addresses. Well known ports are established for a number of applications, on both the sending and receiving hosts , such as port 23, which is used by Telnet. The full list of well known ports and the associated applications is contained in the file /etc/inet/services .