The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol (IP), and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP. TCP provides reliable, ordered delivery of a stream of octets from a program on one computer to another program on another computer. TCP is the protocol used by major Internet applications such as the World Wide Web, email, remote administration and file transfer. Other applications, which do not require reliable data stream service, may use the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which provides a datagram service that emphasizes reduced latency over reliability.
 

Network function
The protocol corresponds to the transport layer of TCP/IP suite. TCP provides a communication service at an intermediate level between an application program and the Internet Protocol (IP). That is, when an application program desires to send a large chunk of data across the Internet using IP, instead of breaking the data into IP-sized pieces and issuing a series of IP requests, the software can issue a single request to TCP and let TCP handle the IP details.

IP works by exchanging pieces of information called packets. A packet is a sequence of octets and consists of a header followed by a body. The header describes the packet's destination and, optionally, the routers to use for forwarding until it arrives at its destination. The body contains the data IP is transmitting.

Due to network congestion, traffic load balancing, or other unpredictable network behavior, IP packets can be lost, duplicated, or delivered out of order. TCP detects these problems, requests retransmission of lost data, rearranges out-of-order data, and even helps minimize network congestion to reduce the occurrence of the other problems. Once the TCP receiver has reassembled the sequence of octets originally transmitted, it passes them to the application program. Thus, TCP abstracts the application's communication from the underlying networking details.

TCP is utilized extensively by many of the Internet's most popular applications, including the World Wide Web (WWW), E-mail, File Transfer Protocol, Secure Shell, peer-to-peer file sharing, and some streaming media applications.

TCP is optimized for accurate delivery rather than timely delivery, and therefore, TCP sometimes incurs relatively long delays (in the order of seconds) while waiting for out-of-order messages or retransmissions of lost messages. It is not particularly suitable for real-time applications such as Voice over IP. For such applications, protocols like the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) running over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) are usually recommended instead.

TCP is a reliable stream delivery service that guarantees that all bytes received will be identical with bytes sent and in the correct order. Since packet transfer is not reliable, a technique known as positive acknowledgment with retransmission is used to guarantee reliability of packet transfers. This fundamental technique requires the receiver to respond with an acknowledgment message as it receives the data. The sender keeps a record of each packet it sends. The sender also keeps a timer from when the packet was sent, and retransmits a packet if the timer expires before the message has been acknowledged. The timer is needed in case a packet gets lost or corrupted.

TCP consists of a set of rules: for the protocol, that are used with the Internet Protocol, and for the IP, to send data "in a form of message units" between computers over the Internet. While IP handles actual delivery of the data, TCP keeps track of the individual units of data transmission, called segments, that a message is divided into for efficient routing through the network. For example, when an HTML file is sent from a Web server, the TCP software layer of that server divides the sequence of octets of the file into segments and forwards them individually to the IP software layer (Internet Layer). The Internet Layer encapsulates each TCP segment into an IP packet by adding a header that includes (among other data) the destination IP address. Even though every packet has the same destination address, they can be routed on different paths through the network. When the client program on the destination computer receives them, the TCP layer (Transport Layer) reassembles the individual segments and ensures they are correctly ordered and error free as it streams them to an application.


TCP segment structure
Transmission Control Protocol accepts data from a data stream, segments it into chunks, and adds a TCP header creating a TCP segment. The TCP segment is then encapsulated into an Internet Protocol (IP) datagram. A TCP segment is "the packet of information that TCP uses to exchange data with its peers."

The term TCP packet, though sometimes informally used, is not in line with current terminology, where segment refers to the TCP PDU, datagram to the IP PDU and frame to the data link layer PDU:

A TCP segment consists of a segment header and a data section. The TCP header contains 10 mandatory fields, and an optional extension field (Options, orange background in table).

The data section follows the header. Its contents are the payload data carried for the application. The length of the data section is not specified in the TCP segment header. It can be calculated by subtracting the combined length of the TCP header and the encapsulating IP header from the total IP datagram length (specified in the IP header).

TCP Header

• Source port (16 bits) – identifies the sending port
• Destination port (16 bits) – identifies the receiving port
• Sequence number (32 bits) – has a dual role:
• If the SYN flag is set (1), then this is the initial sequence number. The sequence number of the actual first data byte and the acknowledged number in the corresponding ACK are then this sequence number plus 1.
• If the SYN flag is clear (0), then this is the accumulated sequence number of the first data byte of this segment for the current session.
• Acknowledgment number (32 bits) – if the ACK flag is set then the value of this field is the next sequence number that the receiver is expecting. This acknowledges receipt of all prior bytes (if any). The first ACK sent by each end acknowledges the other end's initial sequence number itself, but no data.
• Data offset (4 bits) – specifies the size of the TCP header in 32-bit words. The minimum size header is 5 words and the maximum is 15 words thus giving the minimum size of 20 bytes and maximum of 60 bytes, allowing for up to 40 bytes of options in the header. This field gets its name from the fact that it is also the offset from the start of the TCP segment to the actual data.
• Reserved (3 bits) – for future use and should be set to zero
• Flags (9 bits) (aka Control bits) – contains 9 1-bit flags
• NS (1 bit) – ECN-nonce concealment protection (added to header by RFC 3540).
• CWR (1 bit) – Congestion Window Reduced (CWR) flag is set by the sending host to indicate that it received a TCP segment with the ECE flag set and had responded in congestion control mechanism (added to header by RFC 3168).
• ECE (1 bit) – ECN-Echo indicates
• If the SYN flag is set (1), that the TCP peer is ECN capable.
• If the SYN flag is clear (0), that a packet with Congestion Experienced flag in IP header set is received during normal transmission (added to header by RFC 3168).
• URG (1 bit) – indicates that the Urgent pointer field is significant
• ACK (1 bit) – indicates that the Acknowledgment field is significant. All packets after the initial SYN packet sent by the client should have this flag set.
• PSH (1 bit) – Push function. Asks to push the buffered data to the receiving application.
• RST (1 bit) – Reset the connection
• SYN (1 bit) – Synchronize sequence numbers. Only the first packet sent from each end should have this flag set. Some other flags change meaning based on this flag, and some are only valid for when it is set, and others when it is clear.
• FIN (1 bit) – No more data from sender
• Window size (16 bits) – the size of the receive window, which specifies the number of bytes (beyond the sequence number in the acknowledgment field) that the sender of this segment is currently willing to receive.
• Checksum (16 bits) – The 16-bit checksum field is used for error-checking of the header and data
• Urgent pointer (16 bits) – if the URG flag is set, then this 16-bit field is an offset from the sequence number indicating the last urgent data byte
• Options (Variable 0–320 bits, divisible by 32) – The length of this field is determined by the data offset field. Options have up to three fields: Option-Kind (1 byte), Option-Length (1 byte), Option-Data (variable). The Option-Kind field indicates the type of option, and is the only field that is not optional. Depending on what kind of option we are dealing with, the next two fields may be set: the Option-Length field indicates the total length of the option, and the Option-Data field contains the value of the option, if applicable. For example, an Option-Kind byte of 0x01 indicates that this is a No-Op option used only for padding, and does not have an Option-Length or Option-Data byte following it. An Option-Kind byte of 0 is the End Of Options option, and is also only one byte. An Option-Kind byte of 0x02 indicates that this is the Maximum Segment Size option, and will be followed by a byte specifying the length of the MSS field (should be 0x04). Note that this length is the total length of the given options field, including Option-Kind and Option-Length bytes. So while the MSS value is typically expressed in two bytes, the length of the field will be 4 bytes (+2 bytes of kind and length). In short, an MSS option field with a value of 0x05B4 will show up as (0x02 0x04 0x05B4) in the TCP options section.
• Padding – The TCP header padding is used to ensure that the TCP header ends and data begins on a 32 bit boundary. The padding is composed of zeros.
• Some options may only be sent when SYN is set; they are indicated below as . Option-Kind and standard lengths given as (Option-Kind,Option-Length).
• 0 (8 bits) – End of options list
• 1 (8 bits) – No operation (NOP, Padding) This may be used to align option fields on 32-bit boundaries for better performance.
• 2,4,SS (32 bits) – Maximum segment size
• 3,3,S (24 bits) – Window scale
• 4,2 (16 bits) – Selective Acknowledgement permitted.
• 5,N,BBBB,EEEE,... (variable bits, N is either 10, 18, 26, or 34)- Selective ACKnowledgement (SACK)These first two bytes are followed by a list of 1–4 blocks being selectively acknowledged, specified as 32-bit begin/end pointers.
• 8,10,TTTT,EEEE (80 bits)- Timestamp and echo of previous timestamp
• 14,3,S (24 bits) – TCP Alternate Checksum Request.
• 15,N,... (variable bits) – TCP Alternate Checksum Data.

    (The remaining options are obsolete, experimental, not yet standardized, or unassigned)

Protocol operation
A Simplified TCP State Diagram.

TCP protocol operations may be divided into three phases. Connections must be properly established in a multi-step handshake process (connection establishment) before entering the data transfer phase. After data transmission is completed, the connection termination closes established virtual circuits and releases all allocated resources.

A TCP connection is managed by an operating system through a programming interface that represents the local end-point for communications, the Internet socket. During the lifetime of a TCP connection the local end-point undergoes a series of state changes:

LISTEN -     (server) represents waiting for a connection request from any remote TCP and port.
SYN-SENT -     (client) represents waiting for a matching connection request after having sent a connection request.
SYN-RECEIVED -    (server) represents waiting for a confirming connection request acknowledgment after having both received and sent a connection request.
ESTABLISHED -     (both server and client) 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 -     (both server and client) represents waiting for a connection termination request from the remote TCP, or an acknowledgment of the connection termination request previously sent.
FIN-WAIT-2 -     (both server and client) represents waiting for a connection termination request from the remote TCP.
CLOSE-WAIT -     (both server and client) represents waiting for a connection termination request from the local user.
CLOSING -     (both server and client) represents waiting for a connection termination request acknowledgment from the remote TCP.
LAST-ACK -     (both server and client) represents waiting for an acknowledgment of the connection termination request previously sent to the remote TCP (which includes an acknowledgment of its connection termination request).
TIME-WAIT -     (either server or client) represents waiting for enough time to pass to be sure the remote TCP received the acknowledgment of its connection termination request.
CLOSED -     (both server and client) represents no connection state at all.

Connection establishment
To establish a connection, TCP uses a three-way handshake. Before a client attempts to connect with a server, the server must first bind to and listen at a port to open it up for connections: this is called a passive open. Once the passive open is established, a client may initiate an active open. To establish a connection, the three-way (or 3-step) handshake occurs:

1. SYN: The active open is performed by the client sending a SYN to the server. The client sets the segment's sequence number to a random value A.
2. SYN-ACK: In response, the server replies with a SYN-ACK. The acknowledgment number is set to one more than the received sequence number (A + 1), and the sequence number that the server chooses for the packet is another random number, B.
3. ACK: Finally, the client sends an ACK back to the server. The sequence number is set to the received acknowledgement value i.e. A + 1, and the acknowledgement number is set to one more than the received sequence number i.e. B + 1.

At this point, both the client and server have received an acknowledgment of the connection. The steps 1, 2 establish the connection parameter (sequence number) for one direction and it is acknowledged. The steps 2, 3 establish the connection parameter (sequence number) for the other direction and it is acknowledged. With these, a full-duplex communication is established.

Connection termination
The connection termination phase uses a four-way handshake, with each side of the connection terminating independently. When an endpoint wishes to stop its half of the connection, it transmits a FIN packet, which the other end acknowledges with an ACK. Therefore, a typical tear-down requires a pair of FIN and ACK segments from each TCP endpoint. After both FIN/ACK exchanges are concluded, the side which sent the first FIN before receiving one waits for a timeout before finally closing the connection, during which time the local port is unavailable for new connections; this prevents confusion due to delayed packets being delivered during subsequent connections.

A connection can be "half-open", in which case one side has terminated its end, but the other has not. The side that has terminated can no longer send any data into the connection, but the other side can. The terminating side should continue reading the data until the other side terminates as well.

It is also possible to terminate the connection by a 3-way handshake, when host A sends a FIN and host B replies with a FIN & ACK (merely combines 2 steps into one) and host A replies with an ACK. This is perhaps the most common method.

It is possible for both hosts to send FINs simultaneously then both just have to ACK. This could possibly be considered a 2-way handshake since the FIN/ACK sequence is done in parallel for both directions.

Some host TCP stacks may implement a half-duplex close sequence, as Linux or HP-UX do. If such a host actively closes a connection but still has not read all the incoming data the stack already received from the link, this host sends a RST instead of a FIN (Section 4.2.2.13 in RFC 1122). This allows a TCP application to be sure the remote application has read all the data the former sent—waiting the FIN from the remote side, when it actively closes the connection. However, the remote TCP stack cannot distinguish between a Connection Aborting RST and this Data Loss RST. Both cause the remote stack to throw away all the data it received, but that the application still didn't read.