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The Wikipedia article on TCP indicates that the IP packets transporting TCP segments can sometimes go lost, and that TCP "requests retransmission of lost data".
What exactly are the rules for requesting retransmission of lost data? At what time frequency are the retransmission requests performed? Is there an upper bound on the number? Is there functionality for the client to indicate to the server to forget about the whole TCP segment for which part went missing when the IP packet went missing?
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What Is TCP Retransmission? TCP (the Transmission Control Protocol) connects network devices to the internet. When an outbound segment is handed down to an IP and there's no acknowledgment for the data before TCP's automatic timer expires, the segment is retransmitted.
Common reasons for retransmissions include network congestion where packets are dropped (either a TCP segment is lost on its way to the destination, or the associated ACK is lost on the way back to the sender), tight router QoS rules that give preferential treatment to certain protocols, and TCP segments that arrive ...
tcp_retries2 (integer; default: 15; since Linux 2.2) The maximum number of times a TCP packet is retransmitted in established state before giving up. The default value is 15, which corresponds to a duration of approximately between 13 to 30 minutes, depending on the retransmission timeout.
Then, in order to detect if a re-transmission has happened, you simply know it if the same source has sent a TCP segment with a sequence number that's lower than the expected seq_num + 4 + 1 .
What exactly are the rules for requesting retransmission of lost data?
The receiver does not request the retransmission. The sender waits for an ACK for the byte-range sent to the client and when not received, resends the packets, after a particular interval. This is ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest). There are several ways in which this is implemented.
Stop-and-wait ARQ Go-Back-N ARQ Selective Repeat ARQ are detailed in the RFC 3366.
At what time frequency are the retransmission requests performed?
The retransmissions-times and the number of attempts isn't enforced by the standard. It is implemented differently by different operating systems, but the methodology is fixed. (One of the ways to fingerprint OSs perhaps?)
The timeouts are measured in terms of the RTT (Round Trip Time) times. But this isn't needed very often due to Fast-retransmit which kicks in when 3 Duplicate ACKs are received.
Is there an upper bound on the number?
Yes there is. After a certain number of retries, the host is considered to be "down" and the sender gives up and tears down the TCP connection.
Is there functionality for the client to indicate to the server to forget about the whole TCP segment for which part went missing when the IP packet went missing?
The whole point is reliable communication. If you wanted the client to forget about some part, you wouldn't be using TCP in the first place. (UDP perhaps?)
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