UpdatedEXPERIMENTALIETF stream

RFC 4138: Forward RTO-Recovery (F-RTO): An Algorithm for Detecting Spurious Retransmission Timeouts with TCP and the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)

Still current, but amended. Parts of this document are changed or extended by RFC 5682. Read both.

In plain English — editorial summary, not part of the RFC

Spurious retransmission timeouts cause suboptimal TCP performance because they often result in unnecessary retransmission of the last window of data. This document describes the F-RTO detection algorithm for detecting spurious TCP retransmission timeouts. F-RTO is a TCP sender-only algorithm that does not require any TCP options to operate. After retransmitting the first unacknowledged segment triggered by a timeout, the F-RTO algorithm of the TCP sender monitors the incoming acknowledgments to determine whether the timeout was spurious. It then decides whether to send new segments or retransmit unacknowledged segments. The algorithm effectively helps to avoid additional unnecessary retransmissions and thereby improves TCP performance in the case of a spurious timeout. The F-RTO algorithm can also be applied to the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP). This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

Document record

Document ID
RFC4138
Published
August 2005
Authors
P. Sarolahti; M. Kojo
Status
EXPERIMENTAL
Stream
IETF
Area
wit
Pages
23
Also known as
Updated by:
RFC 5682

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The document record above — title, authors, date, status, stream, area, relationships, DOI and errata — is imported verbatim from the public RFC Editor index. The “in plain English” section is editorial: written by The metasystema editorial team, not part of the RFC. Where the two differ, the RFC text governs.

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canonical URL: /rfc/4138-forward-rto-recovery-f-rto-an-algorithm-for-detecting-spurious-retransmission-ti