Protocol Action: TCP Slow Start, Congestion Avoidance, Fast Retransmit, and Fast Recovery Algorithms to Proposed Standard

The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org> Thu, 24 October 1996 18:14 UTC

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From: The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>
Subject: Protocol Action: TCP Slow Start, Congestion Avoidance, Fast Retransmit, and Fast Recovery Algorithms to Proposed Standard
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 14:11:22 -0400
Message-ID: <9610241411.aa07795@ietf.org>


  The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft "TCP Slow Start, Congestion
  Avoidance, Fast Retransmit, and Fast Recovery Algorithms"
  <draft-stevens-tcpca-spec-01.txt> as a Proposed Standard. This
  document is not a product of an IETF Working Group, but it was
  sponsored by the Transport Area Directorate.

  The IESG contact person is Allison Mankin.


Technical Summary

Modern implementations of TCP contain four intertwined algorithms that
have never been fully documented as Internet standards:  slow start,
congestion avoidance, fast retransmit, and fast recovery.  RFC 1122
requires that a TCP must implement slow start and congestion avoidance,
citing Jacobson's SIGCOMM '88 paper in lieu of an RFC.  The purpose of
this document is to provide an accurate description of these four
algorithms for the Internet.

Working Group Summary

This document was not produced by a working group, but it received a
four-week Last Call.  It represents a broad consensus on TCP congestion
avoidance.

Protocol Quality

This document was reviewed by Allison Mankin, the Transport Services
Area Director, and members of the Transport Area Directorate,
particularly Sally Floyd (LBL) and Greg Minshall (Ipsilon).  There are
numerous deployed implementations of the algorithms described.

Protocol Action: TCP Slow Start, Congestion Avoid… The IESG