Chapter 5

Transport Layer
▪ Outline:
5.1 The transport service: Services provided to the upper layers
5.2 Transport protocols: UDP, TCP
5.3 Port and Socket
5.4 Connection establishment, Connection release
5.5 Flow control & buffering
5.6 Multiplexing & de-multiplexing
5.7 Congestion control algorithm: Token Bucket and Leaky Bucket

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 Transport Layer
▪ The data link layer is responsible for delivery of frames between two
neighboring nodes over a link. This is called node-to-node delivery.
▪ The network layer is responsible for delivery of datagrams between two
hosts. This is called host-to-host delivery.
▪ The transport layer is responsible for process-to-process delivery-the
delivery of a packet, part of a message, from one process to another.
▪ The basic function of the transport layer is to accept data from above, split it
up into smaller units if need be, pass these to the network layer, and ensure
that the pieces all arrive correctly at the other end.
▪ Furthermore, all this must be done efficiently and in a way that isolates the
upper layers from the inevitable changes in the hardware technology.

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IP addresses versus port numbers

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 Functions of Transport Protocols
▪ Error Handling
▪ Flow Control
▪ Multiplexing
▪ Connection Set-up and Release
▪ Congestion Handling
▪ Segmentation and Reassembly
▪ Addressing

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 Services provided to the upper layers
▪ The ultimate goal of the transport layer is to provide efficient, reliable, and
cost-effective data transmission service to its users.
▪ To achieve this, the transport layer makes use of the services provided by the
network layer. The software and/or hardware within the transport layer that
does the work is called the transport entity.
▪ There are two types of transport services:
• connection-oriented
• connectionless
▪ This is very similar to the network layer. Why bother having two?
▪ The answer is subtle: network layer code runs on routers while transport
layer code is run on user’s machines.
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The (logical) relationship of the network, transport, and application layers 7
 Transport Layer Protocol Services
▪ Connection-oriented Services
▪ Connection-Oriented means that when devices communicate, they perform
handshaking to set up an end-to-end connection.
▪ Connection-Oriented systems can only work in bi-directional communications
environments. To negotiate a connection, both sides must be able to communicate
with each other. This will not work in a unidirectional environment. Since a
connection needs to be established, the service also becomes reliable one.
▪ Example: TCP
▪ Connection-less Services
▪ A connection less transport service does not require connection establishment .
Since there is no establishment, there should be no termination also.
▪ This happens to be a unreliable service but much more faster than connection
oriented.
▪ Example: UDP 8
 Transport Layer Protocol Services
▪ Provide logical communication
between application processes
running on different hosts
▪ Transport protocols run in end
systems
• send side: breaks application
messages into segments,
passes to network layer
• receive side: reassembles
segments into messages,
passes to application layer

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 Transport Control Protocol (TCP)
TCP Protocol Functions
▪ In TCP, connection-oriented
• Multiplexing transmission requires three
• Error Handling phases: connection establishment,
• Flow Control data transfer, and connection
• Congestion Handling termination.
▪ TCP identifies connections on the
• Connection Set-up and release
basis of endpoints:
TCP Transport Service • IP address + port number
• Connection Oriented (full duplex point- • Often written as: IP-address :
to-point connection between processes). port-number, for instance:
• Reliable 130.89.17.3:80
• In-sequence segment delivery
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 TCP
▪ Prior to data transmission, hosts establish a virtual connection via a
synchronization process. The synch process is a 3-way “handshake”, which
ensures both sides are ready to transfer data and determines the initial
sequence numbers.
▪ Sequence numbers are reference numbers between the two devices. Sequence
numbers give hosts a way to acknowledge what they have received.
• TCP provides the following major services to the upper protocol layers:
• Connection-oriented data management to assure the end-to-end transfer of
data across the network(s).
• Reliable data transfer to assure that all data is accurately received, in
sequence and with no duplicates.
• Stream-oriented data transfer takes place between the sender application
and TCP and the receiving application and TCP. 11
The TCP Header

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 The TCP Header
▪ Source Port: This is a 16-bit field that defines the port number of the application
program in the host that is sending the segment.
▪ Destination Port: This is a 16-bit field that defines the port number of the
application program in the host that is receiving the segment.
▪ Source and Destination port are of each 16 bit. Number of port number
= 216 = 65535.
▪ 0-1023 are well known port numbers, which is used by system to represent
different services. e.g. port 25 for SMTP, port 80 for http, 443 for https 21
for ftp, 23 for telnet etc.
▪ The 32 bit Sequence number and 32 bit Acknowledgement number fields are
used for reliable data transfer between hosts.

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 The TCP Header
▪ Header length: The TCP header length tells how many 32-bit words are contained
in the TCP header. This information is needed because the Options field is of
variable length, so the header is, too.
▪ Reserved: Six bits reserved for future use; must be zero.
▪ Six bit flags i.e. URG, ACK, PSH, RST, FIN and SYN.
▪ The ACK bit is set to 1 to indicate that the Acknowledgement number is valid. If
ACK is 0, the segment does not contain an acknowledgement, so the
Acknowledgement number field is ignored.
▪ The SYN bit is used to establish connections. The connection request has SYN = 1
and ACK = 0 to indicate that the piggyback acknowledgement field is not in use.
▪ In essence, the SYN bit is used to denote both CONNECTION REQUEST and
CONNECTION ACCEPTED, with the ACK bit used to distinguish between those
two possibilities.
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 The TCP Header
▪ RST: Reset the connection.
▪ FIN: Terminate the connection. The FIN bit is used to release a connection. It
specifies that the sender has no more data to transmit.
▪ Window size : Flow control in TCP is handled using a variable-sized sliding
window. The Window size field tells how many bytes may be sent starting at the
byte acknowledged.
▪ URG: URG is set to 1 if the Urgent pointer is in use. Sender can use URGENT
flag to have TCP send data immediately and have the receiver TCP signal the
receiver application that there is data to be read.
▪ PSH: The PSH bit indicates PUSHed data.

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 Connection establishment using three-way Handshaking
▪ Step 1: Client host sends TCP SYN segment to server specifies
• a random initial seq. #
• no data
▪ Step 2: Server host receives SYN, replies with SYNACK segment
▪ server allocates buffers
▪ specifies server initial seq. #
▪ Step 3: Client receives SYNACK, replies with ACK segment, which may
contain data. An ACK segment, if carrying no data, consumes no sequence
number.

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Connection establishment using three-way Handshaking

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 TCP Connection Termination

Connection Closing
▪ Step 1: client end system sends TCP FIN
control segment to server.
▪ Step 2: server receives FIN, replies with
ACK. Closes connection, sends FIN.
▪ Step 3: client receives FIN, replies with
ACK. Enters “timed wait” - will respond
with ACK to received FINs.
▪ Step 4: server, receives ACK. Connection
closed.

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 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
▪ UDP is a connectionless, unreliable Why Would Anyone Use UDP?
transport protocol. ▪ No delay for connection establishment
▪ No flow control. No ACK. of • UDP just blasts away without any
received packets. Only error control formal preliminaries
is if a checksum error is detected. • avoids introducing any
unnecessary delays
▪ The UDP protocol functions are: ▪ No connection state
• Multiplexing • No allocation of buffers,
• Error Detection parameters, sequence numbers,
▪ The UDP Service: etc.
• Is a connectionless service • easier to handle many active
clients at once
• Is unreliable ▪ Small packet header overhead
• Has no in-sequence delivery • UDP header is only eight-bytes
guarantees long 19
 The UTP Header
▪ Destination Port: identifies destination process
▪ Source Port: It is optional – identifies source process for replies, or zero. The
source port is primarily needed when a reply must be sent back to the source.
▪ Message Length: length of datagram in bytes, including header and data. The
UDP length field includes the 8-byte header and the data. The minimum length is
8 bytes, to cover the header. The maximum length is 65,515 bytes.
• Checksum: The UDP checksum is optional and stored as 0 if not computed.

32 Bits

Source port Destination port

UDP length UDP checksum
Application Data (Message)
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TCP vs. UDP

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 Port
▪ Port numbers are used to keep track of different conversations that cross the network
at the same time.
▪ Port numbers identify which upper layer service is needed, and are needed when a
host communicates with a server that uses multiple services.
▪ Ports are conceptual “points of entry” into a host computer.
▪ Servers “listen on a port” for connection attempts.
▪ Ports provide one level of internet security.
▪ Both TCP and UDP use port numbers to pass to the upper layers.
▪ Port numbers have the following ranges:
• 0-255 used for public applications, 0-1023 also called well-known ports, regulated
by IANA.
• Numbers from 255-1023 are assigned to marketable applications
• 1024 through 49151 Registered Ports, not regulated.
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• 49152 through 65535 are Dynamic and/or Private Ports .
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 Socket
▪ Sockets allow communication between two different processes on the same or
different machines.
▪ To the kernel, a socket is an endpoint of communication.
▪ To an application, a socket is a file descriptor that lets the application
read/write from/to the network.
• All Unix I/O devices, including networks, are modeled as files.
▪ Sockets are UNIQUELY identified by Internet address, end-to-end protocol,
and port number.
▪ Clients and servers communicate with each by reading from and writing to socket
descriptors.
▪ Functions: Define an “end- point” for communication, Initiate and accept a
connection, Send and receive data, Terminate a connection gracefully.
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 Type of Socket
▪ Socket are Two types.
▪ Stream socket :( connection- oriented socket)
• It provides reliable, connected networking service
• If you send through the stream socket three items "A, B, C", they will arrive in
the same order − "A, B, C".
• These sockets use TCP for data transmission.
• If delivery is impossible, the sender receives an error indicator.
• applications: telnet/ ssh, http, …
▪ Datagram socket :(connectionless socket)
▪ It provides unreliable, best- effort networking service.
▪ Packets may be lost; may arrive out of order (uses UDP).
▪ applications: streaming audio/ video (real-player). 25
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 Flow Control and Buffering
▪ Flow control is keeping a fast transmitter from overrunning a slow receiver.
▪ Flow control at this layer is performed end-to-end rather than across a single
link.
▪ A sliding window is used to make data transmission more efficient as well as to
control the flow of data so that the receiver does not become overwhelmed.
▪ The buffers are needed at both the sender and the receiver.
▪ For low-bandwidth bursty traffic, it is reasonable not to dedicate any buffers,
but rather to acquire them dynamically at both ends, relying on buffering at the
sender if segments must occasionally be discarded.
▪ On the other hand, for file transfer and other high-bandwidth traffic, it is
better if the receiver does dedicate a full window of buffers, to allow the data to
flow at maximum speed.
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 TCP Windows and Flow Control
▪ Data often is too large to be sent in a single segment.
▪ TCP splits the data into multiple segments.
▪ TCP provides flow control through “windowing” to set the pace of how much data is
sent at a time
• how many bytes per window, and how many windows between ACKs.

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 Flow Control and Buffering
▪ Even if the receiver has agreed to do the buffering, there still remains the
question of the buffer size.
▪ If most TPDUs are nearly the same size, it is natural to organize the buffers as a
pool of identically-sized buffers, with one TPDU per buffer, as in Fig.(a).
▪ However, if there is wide variation in TPDU size, from a few characters typed at
a terminal to thousands of characters from file transfers, a pool of fixed-sized
buffers presents problems.
▪ If the buffer size is chosen equal to the largest possible TPDU, space will be
wasted whenever a short TPDU arrives.
▪ If the buffer size is chosen less than the maximum TPDU size, multiple buffers
will be needed for long TPDUs, with the attendant complexity.

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 Flow Control and Buffering
▪ Another approach to the buffer size problem is to use variable-sized
buffers, as in Fig. (b).
▪ The advantage here is better memory utilization, at the price of more
complicated buffer management.
▪ A third possibility is to dedicate a single large circular buffer per
connection, as in Fig.(c).
▪ This system also makes good use of memory, provided that all connections
are heavily loaded, but is poor if some connections are lightly loaded.

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 Congestion control algorithm
▪ When too many packets present in (a part of) the network causes packet
delay and loss that degrades performance. This situation is called congestion.
▪ The network and transport layers share the responsibility for handling
congestion.

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 Congestion control algorithm
▪ If all of a sudden, streams of packets begin arriving on three or four input
lines and all need the same output line, a queue will build up. If there is
insufficient memory to hold all of them, packets will be lost.
• Low-bandwidth links or routers that process packets more slowly than the
line rate can also become congested.
▪ If router has no free buffers, it must discard newly arriving packet. Sender
may timeout and retransmits again and again increasing traffic.
▪ Routers have an infinite amount of memory, congestion gets worse, not
better, because by the time packets get to the front of the queue, they have
already timed out (repeatedly) and duplicates have been sent.

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 Difference between Flow Control and Congestion

▪ Congestion control has to do with making sure the subnet is able to carry the
offered traffic. It is a global issue, involving the behavior of all the hosts, all
the routers, the store-and-forwarding processing within the routers, and all the
other factors that tend to diminish the carrying capacity of the subnet.
▪ Flow control, in contrast, relates to the point-to-point traffic between a
given sender and a given receiver. Its job is to make sure that a fast sender
cannot continually transmit data faster than the receiver is able to absorb it.
▪ Flow control frequently involves some direct feedback from the receiver to
the sender to tell the sender how things are doing at the other end.

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 Approaches of Congestion Control
▪ The presence of congestion means that the load is (temporarily) greater than
the resources (in a part of the network) can handle.
▪ Two solutions come to mind: increase the resources or decrease the load.
▪ Solutions are usually applied on different time scales to either prevent
congestion or react to it once it has occurred.

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 Approaches of Congestion Control
▪ Links and routers that are regularly heavily utilized are upgraded at the
earliest opportunity. This is called provisioning and happens on a time scale of
months, driven by long-term traffic trends.
▪ Traffic-aware routing: Splitting traffic across multiple paths.
▪ In a virtual-circuit network, new connections can be refused if they would
cause the network to become congested. This is called admission control.
▪ When congestion is imminent the network can deliver feedback to the
sources whose traffic flows are responsible for the problem. The network can
request these sources to throttle their traffic, or it can slow down the traffic
itself.
▪ Load shedding: the network is forced to discard packets that it cannot deliver.

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 The Leaky Bucket Algorithm
▪ This arrangement can be built into the hardware interface or simulated by the host
operating system. It was first proposed by Turner (1986) and is called the leaky
bucket algorithm.
▪ The leaky bucket consists of a finite queue. When a packet arrives, if there is room
on the queue it is appended to the queue; otherwise, it is discarded. At every
clock tick, one packet is transmitted (unless the queue is empty).
▪ A leaky bucket algorithm shapes bursty traffic into fixed-rate traffic by averaging
the data rate. It may drop the packets if the bucket is full.

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 The Leaky Bucket Algorithm

(a) A leaky bucket with water.

(b) A leaky bucket with packets 38
 The Leaky Bucket Algorithm
▪ Try to imagine a bucket with a small hole in the bottom, as shown in figure.
▪ No matter the rate at which water enters the bucket, the outflow is at a
constant rate, R, when there is any water in the bucket and zero when the
bucket is empty.
▪ Also, once the bucket is full to capacity, any additional water entering it
spills over the sides and is lost.
▪ The same idea can be applied to packets, as shown in Fig. (b). Conceptually,
each host is connected to the network by an interface containing a leaky
bucket, that is, a finite internal queue.
▪ If a packet arrives when the bucket is full, the packet must either be queued
until enough water leaks out to hold it or be discarded.

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The Token Bucket Algorithm

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 The Token Bucket Algorithm
▪ For many applications, it is better to allow the output to speed up somewhat
when large bursts arrive, so a more flexible algorithm is needed, preferably
one that never loses data. One such algorithm is the token bucket algorithm
▪ Tokens arrive at constant rate in the token bucket. If bucket is full, tokens
are discarded. A packet from the buffer can be taken out only if a token in
the token bucket can be drawn.
▪ The token bucket algorithm does allow saving, up to the maximum size of the
bucket, n. This property means that bursts of up to n packets can be sent at
once, allowing some burstiness in the output stream and giving faster response
to sudden bursts of input.

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 The Token Bucket Algorithm
▪ For example, if a host is not sending for a while, its bucket becomes empty.
Now if the host has bursty data, the leaky bucket allows only an average rate.
The time when the host was idle is not taken into account.
▪ On the other hand, the token bucket algorithm allows idle hosts to accumulate
credit for the future in the form of tokens.
▪ For each tick of the clock, the system sends n tokens to the bucket. The system
removes one token for every cell (or byte) of data sent.
▪ For example, if n is 100 and the host is idle for 100 ticks, the bucket collects
10,000 tokens.
▪ Now the host can consume all these tokens in one tick with 10,000 cells, or the
host takes 1000 ticks with 10 cells per tick.
▪ In other words, the host can send bursty data as long as the bucket is not
empty. 42
 Token Bucket Vs. Leaky Bucket

▪ The token bucket algorithm provides a different kind of traffic shaping than
that of the leaky bucket algorithm. The leaky bucket algorithm does not
allow idle hosts to save up permission to send large bursts later.
▪ Another difference between the two algorithms is that the token bucket
algorithm throws away tokens (i.e., transmission capacity) when the bucket
fills up but never discards packets. In contrast, the leaky bucket algorithm
discards packets when the bucket fills up.

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 Multiplexing & de-multiplexing

▪ Multiplexing at sending host: gathering data from multiple sockets,

enveloping data with header (later used for de-multiplexing).
▪ De-multiplexing at receiving host: delivering received segments to correct
socket.
▪ How de-multiplexing works ?
• Host receives IP datagram
✓each datagram has source IP address, destination IP address
✓each datagram carries 1 transport layer segment
✓each segment has source, destination port number
▪ Host uses IP addresses & port numbers to direct segment to appropriate
socket.
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Multiplexing & de-multiplexing

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 Thank You
???

References:
▪ Data Communications and Networking “ Behrouz A. Forouzan”
▪ Computer Networks “A. S. Tanenbaum” Fifth Edition
▪ Data and Computer Communications “William Stallings” Tenth Edition.

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