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DCCP protocol
============
Contents
========
- Introduction
- Missing features
- Socket options
- Notes
Introduction
============
Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) is an unreliable, connection
based protocol designed to solve issues present in UDP and TCP particularly
for real time and multimedia traffic.
It has a base protocol and pluggable congestion control IDs (CCIDs).
It is at proposed standard RFC status and the homepage for DCCP as a protocol
is at:
http://www.read.cs.ucla.edu/dccp/
Missing features
================
The DCCP implementation does not currently have all the features that are in
the RFC.
The known bugs are at:
http://linux-net.osdl.org/index.php/TODO#DCCP
Socket options
==============
DCCP_SOCKOPT_SERVICE sets the service. The specification mandates use of
service codes (RFC 4340, sec. 8.1.2); if this socket option is not set,
the socket will fall back to 0 (which means that no meaningful service code
is present). Connecting sockets set at most one service option; for
listening sockets, multiple service codes can be specified.
DCCP_SOCKOPT_SEND_CSCOV and DCCP_SOCKOPT_RECV_CSCOV are used for setting the
partial checksum coverage (RFC 4340, sec. 9.2). The default is that checksums
always cover the entire packet and that only fully covered application data is
accepted by the receiver. Hence, when using this feature on the sender, it must
be enabled at the receiver, too with suitable choice of CsCov.
DCCP_SOCKOPT_SEND_CSCOV sets the sender checksum coverage. Values in the
range 0..15 are acceptable. The default setting is 0 (full coverage),
values between 1..15 indicate partial coverage.
DCCP_SOCKOPT_SEND_CSCOV is for the receiver and has a different meaning: it
sets a threshold, where again values 0..15 are acceptable. The default
of 0 means that all packets with a partial coverage will be discarded.
Values in the range 1..15 indicate that packets with minimally such a
coverage value are also acceptable. The higher the number, the more
restrictive this setting (see [RFC 4340, sec. 9.2.1]).
The following two options apply to CCID 3 exclusively and are getsockopt()-only.
In either case, a TFRC info struct (defined in <linux/tfrc.h>) is returned.
DCCP_SOCKOPT_CCID_RX_INFO
Returns a `struct tfrc_rx_info' in optval; the buffer for optval and
optlen must be set to at least sizeof(struct tfrc_rx_info).
DCCP_SOCKOPT_CCID_TX_INFO
Returns a `struct tfrc_tx_info' in optval; the buffer for optval and
optlen must be set to at least sizeof(struct tfrc_tx_info).
Sysctl variables
================
Several DCCP default parameters can be managed by the following sysctls
(sysctl net.dccp.default or /proc/sys/net/dccp/default):
request_retries
The number of active connection initiation retries (the number of
Requests minus one) before timing out. In addition, it also governs
the behaviour of the other, passive side: this variable also sets
the number of times DCCP repeats sending a Response when the initial
handshake does not progress from RESPOND to OPEN (i.e. when no Ack
is received after the initial Request). This value should be greater
than 0, suggested is less than 10. Analogue of tcp_syn_retries.
retries1
How often a DCCP Response is retransmitted until the listening DCCP
side considers its connecting peer dead. Analogue of tcp_retries1.
retries2
The number of times a general DCCP packet is retransmitted. This has
importance for retransmitted acknowledgments and feature negotiation,
data packets are never retransmitted. Analogue of tcp_retries2.
send_ndp = 1
Whether or not to send NDP count options (sec. 7.7.2).
send_ackvec = 1
Whether or not to send Ack Vector options (sec. 11.5).
ack_ratio = 2
The default Ack Ratio (sec. 11.3) to use.
tx_ccid = 2
Default CCID for the sender-receiver half-connection.
rx_ccid = 2
Default CCID for the receiver-sender half-connection.
seq_window = 100
The initial sequence window (sec. 7.5.2).
tx_qlen = 5
The size of the transmit buffer in packets. A value of 0 corresponds
to an unbounded transmit buffer.
Notes
=====
DCCP does not travel through NAT successfully at present on many boxes. This is
because the checksum covers the psuedo-header as per TCP and UDP. Linux NAT
support for DCCP has been added.