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TCP(4) BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual TCP(4) NAME tcp -- Internet Transmission Control Protocol SYNOPSIS #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> #include <netinet/in.h> #include <netinet/tcp.h> int socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); DESCRIPTION The TCP protocol provides reliable, flow-controlled, two-way transmission of data. It is a byte-stream protocol used to support the SOCK_STREAM abstraction. TCP uses the standard Internet address format and, in addi- tion, provides a per-host collection of "port addresses". Thus, each ad- dress is composed of an Internet address specifying the host and network, with a specific TCP port on the host identifying the peer entity. Sockets utilizing the TCP protocol are either "active" or "passive". Ac- tive sockets initiate connections to passive sockets. By default, TCP sockets are created active; to create a passive socket, the listen(2) system call must be used after binding the socket with the bind(2) system call. Only passive sockets may use the accept(2) call to accept incoming connections. Only active sockets may use the connect(2) call to initiate connections. Passive sockets may "underspecify" their location to match incoming con- nection requests from multiple networks. This technique, termed "wildcard addressing", allows a single server to provide service to clients on multiple networks. To create a socket which listens on all networks, the Internet address INADDR_ANY must be bound. The TCP port may still be specified at this time; if the port is not specified, the system will assign one. Once a connection has been established, the socket's address is fixed by the peer entity's location. The address as- signed to the socket is the address associated with the network interface through which packets are being transmitted and received. Normally, this address corresponds to the peer entity's network. TCP supports a number of socket options which can be set with setsockopt(2) and tested with getsockopt(2): TCP_INFO Information about a socket's underlying TCP session may be retrieved by passing the read-only option TCP_INFO to getsockopt(2). It accepts a single argument: a pointer to an instance of struct tcp_info. This API is subject to change; consult the source to determine which fields are currently filled out by this option. FreeBSD specific additions include send window size, receive window size, and bandwidth-controlled window space. TCP_CCALGOOPT Set or query congestion control algorithm specific pa- rameters. See mod_cc(4) for details. TCP_CONGESTION Select or query the congestion control algorithm that TCP will use for the connection. See mod_cc(4) for de- tails. TCP_FUNCTION_BLK Select or query the set of functions that TCP will use for this connection. This allows a user to select an alternate TCP stack. The alternate TCP stack must al- ready be loaded in the kernel. To list the available TCP stacks, see functions_available in the MIB Variables section further down. To list the default TCP stack, see functions_default in the MIB Variables section. TCP_KEEPINIT This setsockopt(2) option accepts a per-socket timeout argument of u_int in seconds, for new, non-established TCP connections. For the global default in millisec- onds see keepinit in the MIB Variables section further down. TCP_KEEPIDLE This setsockopt(2) option accepts an argument of u_int for the amount of time, in seconds, that the connection must be idle before keepalive probes (if enabled) are sent for the connection of this socket. If set on a listening socket, the value is inherited by the newly created socket upon accept(2). For the global default in milliseconds see keepidle in the MIB Variables sec- tion further down. TCP_KEEPINTVL This setsockopt(2) option accepts an argument of u_int to set the per-socket interval, in seconds, between keepalive probes sent to a peer. If set on a listening socket, the value is inherited by the newly created socket upon accept(2). For the global default in mil- liseconds see keepintvl in the MIB Variables section further down. TCP_KEEPCNT This setsockopt(2) option accepts an argument of u_int and allows a per-socket tuning of the number of probes sent, with no response, before the connection will be dropped. If set on a listening socket, the value is inherited by the newly created socket upon accept(2). For the global default see the keepcnt in the MIB Variables section further down. TCP_NODELAY Under most circumstances, TCP sends data when it is presented; when outstanding data has not yet been ac- knowledged, it gathers small amounts of output to be sent in a single packet once an acknowledgement is re- ceived. For a small number of clients, such as window systems that send a stream of mouse events which re- ceive no replies, this packetization may cause signifi- cant delays. The boolean option TCP_NODELAY defeats this algorithm. TCP_MAXSEG By default, a sender- and receiver-TCP will negotiate among themselves to determine the maximum segment size to be used for each connection. The TCP_MAXSEG option allows the user to determine the result of this negoti- ation, and to reduce it if desired. TCP_NOOPT TCP usually sends a number of options in each packet, corresponding to various TCP extensions which are pro- vided in this implementation. The boolean option TCP_NOOPT is provided to disable TCP option use on a per-connection basis. TCP_NOPUSH By convention, the sender-TCP will set the "push" bit, and begin transmission immediately (if permitted) at the end of every user call to write(2) or writev(2). When this option is set to a non-zero value, TCP will delay sending any data at all until either the socket is closed, or the internal send buffer is filled. TCP_MD5SIG This option enables the use of MD5 digests (also known as TCP-MD5) on writes to the specified socket. Outgo- ing traffic is digested; digests on incoming traffic are verified. When this option is enabled on a socket, all inbound and outgoing TCP segments must be signed with MD5 digests. One common use for this in a FreeBSD router deployment is to enable based routers to interwork with Cisco equipment at peering points. Support for this feature conforms to RFC 2385. In order for this option to function correctly, it is necessary for the administrator to add a tcp-md5 key entry to the system's security associations database (SADB) using the setkey(8) utility. This entry can only be specified on a per-host basis at this time. If an SADB entry cannot be found for the destination, the system does not send any outgoing segments and drops any inbound segments. Each dropped segment is taken into account in the TCP protocol statistics. The option level for the setsockopt(2) call is the protocol number for TCP, available from getprotobyname(3), or IPPROTO_TCP. All options are declared in <netinet/tcp.h>. Options at the IP transport level may be used with TCP; see ip(4). In- coming connection requests that are source-routed are noted, and the re- verse source route is used in responding. The default congestion control algorithm for TCP is cc_newreno(4). Other congestion control algorithms can be made available using the mod_cc(4) framework. MIB Variables The TCP protocol implements a number of variables in the net.inet.tcp branch of the sysctl(3) MIB. TCPCTL_DO_RFC1323 (rfc1323) Implement the window scaling and timestamp options of RFC 1323 (default is true). TCPCTL_MSSDFLT (mssdflt) The default value used for the maximum seg- ment size ("MSS") when no advice to the contrary is received from MSS negotiation. TCPCTL_SENDSPACE (sendspace) Maximum TCP send window. TCPCTL_RECVSPACE (recvspace) Maximum TCP receive window. log_in_vain Log any connection attempts to ports where there is not a socket accepting connections. The value of 1 limits the logging to SYN (connection establishment) packets only. That of 2 results in any TCP packets to closed ports being logged. Any value unlisted above disables the logging (default is 0, i.e., the logging is disabled). msl The Maximum Segment Lifetime, in milliseconds, for a packet. keepinit Timeout, in milliseconds, for new, non-established TCP connections. The default is 75000 msec. keepidle Amount of time, in milliseconds, that the connection must be idle before keepalive probes (if enabled) are sent. The default is 7200000 msec (2 hours). keepintvl The interval, in milliseconds, between keepalive probes sent to remote machines, when no response is received on a keepidle probe. The default is 75000 msec. keepcnt Number of probes sent, with no response, before a con- nection is dropped. The default is 8 packets. always_keepalive Assume that SO_KEEPALIVE is set on all TCP connec- tions, the kernel will periodically send a packet to the remote host to verify the connection is still up. icmp_may_rst Certain ICMP unreachable messages may abort connec- tions in SYN-SENT state. do_tcpdrain Flush packets in the TCP reassembly queue if the sys- tem is low on mbufs. blackhole If enabled, disable sending of RST when a connection is attempted to a port where there is not a socket ac- cepting connections. See blackhole(4). delayed_ack Delay ACK to try and piggyback it onto a data packet. delacktime Maximum amount of time, in milliseconds, before a de- layed ACK is sent. path_mtu_discovery Enable Path MTU Discovery. tcbhashsize Size of the TCP control-block hash table (read-only). This may be tuned using the kernel option TCBHASHSIZE or by setting net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize in the loader(8). pcbcount Number of active process control blocks (read-only). syncookies Determines whether or not SYN cookies should be gener- ated for outbound SYN-ACK packets. SYN cookies are a great help during SYN flood attacks, and are enabled by default. (See syncookies(4).) isn_reseed_interval The interval (in seconds) specifying how often the se- cret data used in RFC 1948 initial sequence number calculations should be reseeded. By default, this variable is set to zero, indicating that no reseeding will occur. Reseeding should not be necessary, and will break TIME_WAIT recycling for a few minutes. rexmit_min, rexmit_slop Adjust the retransmit timer calculation for TCP. The slop is typically added to the raw calculation to take into account occasional variances that the SRTT (smoothed round-trip time) is unable to accommodate, while the minimum specifies an absolute minimum. While a number of TCP RFCs suggest a 1 second minimum, these RFCs tend to focus on streaming behavior, and fail to deal with the fact that a 1 second minimum has severe detrimental effects over lossy interactive con- nections, such as a 802.11b wireless link, and over very fast but lossy connections for those cases not covered by the fast retransmit code. For this reason, we use 200ms of slop and a near-0 minimum, which gives us an effective minimum of 200ms (similar to Linux). initcwnd_segments Enable the ability to specify initial congestion win- dow in number of segments. The default value is 10 as suggested by RFC 6928. Changing the value on fly would not affect connections using congestion window from the hostcache. Caution: This regulates the burst of packets allowed to be sent in the first RTT. The value should be relative to the link capacity. Start with small values for lower-capacity links. Large bursts can cause buffer overruns and packet drops if routers have small buffers or the link is experiencing congestion. rfc3042 Enable the Limited Transmit algorithm as described in RFC 3042. It helps avoid timeouts on lossy links and also when the congestion window is small, as happens on short transfers. rfc3390 Enable support for RFC 3390, which allows for a vari- able-sized starting congestion window on new connec- tions, depending on the maximum segment size. This helps throughput in general, but particularly affects short transfers and high-bandwidth large propagation- delay connections. sack.enable Enable support for RFC 2018, TCP Selective Acknowledg- ment option, which allows the receiver to inform the sender about all successfully arrived segments, allow- ing the sender to retransmit the missing segments only. sack.maxholes Maximum number of SACK holes per connection. Defaults to 128. sack.globalmaxholes Maximum number of SACK holes per system, across all connections. Defaults to 65536. maxtcptw When a TCP connection enters the TIME_WAIT state, its associated socket structure is freed, since it is of negligible size and use, and a new structure is allo- cated to contain a minimal amount of information nec- essary for sustaining a connection in this state, called the compressed TCP TIME_WAIT state. Since this structure is smaller than a socket structure, it can save a significant amount of system memory. The net.inet.tcp.maxtcptw MIB variable controls the maxi- mum number of these structures allocated. By default, it is initialized to kern.ipc.maxsockets / 5. nolocaltimewait Suppress creating of compressed TCP TIME_WAIT states for connections in which both endpoints are local. fast_finwait2_recycle Recycle TCP FIN_WAIT_2 connections faster when the socket is marked as SBS_CANTRCVMORE (no user process has the socket open, data received on the socket can- not be read). The timeout used here is finwait2_timeout. finwait2_timeout Timeout to use for fast recycling of TCP FIN_WAIT_2 connections. Defaults to 60 seconds. ecn.enable Enable support for TCP Explicit Congestion Notifica- tion (ECN). ECN allows a TCP sender to reduce the transmission rate in order to avoid packet drops. Settings: 0 Disable ECN. 1 Allow incoming connections to request ECN. Outgoing connections will request ECN. 2 Allow incoming connections to request ECN. Outgoing connections will not request ECN. ecn.maxretries Number of retries (SYN or SYN/ACK retransmits) before disabling ECN on a specific connection. This is needed to help with connection establishment when a broken firewall is in the network path. pmtud_blackhole_detection Turn on automatic path MTU blackhole detection. In case of retransmits OS will lower the MSS to check if it's MTU problem. If current MSS is greater than con- figured value to try, it will be set to configured value, otherwise, MSS will be set to default values (net.inet.tcp.mssdflt and net.inet.tcp.v6mssdflt). pmtud_blackhole_mss MSS to try for IPv4 if PMTU blackhole detection is turned on. v6pmtud_blackhole_mss MSS to try for IPv6 if PMTU blackhole detection is turned on. pmtud_blackhole_activated Number of times configured values were used in an at- tempt to downshift. pmtud_blackhole_activated_min_mss Number of times default MSS was used in an attempt to downshift. pmtud_blackhole_failed Number of connections for which retransmits continued even after MSS downshift. functions_available List of available TCP function blocks (TCP stacks). functions_default The default TCP function block (TCP stack). insecure_rst Use criteria defined in RFC793 instead of RFC5961 for accepting RST segments. Default is false. insecure_syn Use criteria defined in RFC793 instead of RFC5961 for accepting SYN segments. Default is false. ERRORS A socket operation may fail with one of the following errors returned: [EISCONN] when trying to establish a connection on a socket which already has one; [ENOBUFS] when the system runs out of memory for an internal data structure; [ETIMEDOUT] when a connection was dropped due to excessive re- transmissions; [ECONNRESET] when the remote peer forces the connection to be closed; [ECONNREFUSED] when the remote peer actively refuses connection es- tablishment (usually because no process is listening to the port); [EADDRINUSE] when an attempt is made to create a socket with a port which has already been allocated; [EADDRNOTAVAIL] when an attempt is made to create a socket with a net- work address for which no network interface exists; [EAFNOSUPPORT] when an attempt is made to bind or connect a socket to a multicast address. [EINVAL] when trying to change TCP function blocks at an in- valid point in the session; [ENOENT] when trying to use a TCP function block that is not available; SEE ALSO getsockopt(2), socket(2), sysctl(3), blackhole(4), inet(4), intro(4), ip(4), mod_cc(4), siftr(4), syncache(4), setkey(8) V. Jacobson, R. Braden, and D. Borman, TCP Extensions for High Performance, RFC 1323. A. Heffernan, Protection of BGP Sessions via the TCP MD5 Signature Option, RFC 2385. K. Ramakrishnan, S. Floyd, and D. Black, The Addition of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP, RFC 3168. HISTORY The TCP protocol appeared in 4.2BSD. The RFC 1323 extensions for window scaling and timestamps were added in 4.4BSD. The TCP_INFO option was in- troduced in Linux 2.6 and is subject to change. BSD February 6, 2017 BSD
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY
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