CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowstcpnetwork-protocols
user1720902
user1720902

Reputation: 67

Does a TCP peer reset the connection after exhaust the send retry counter?

Supose a Windows TCP peer sending a TCP packet and the remote peer not ACK'ing it neither reseting the connection (kernel crash, power/hardware failure,etc.)

Does the windows peer reset the connection after exhaust the send retry counter?

Does the TCP RFC say something about it?

My doubt arises after reading the following sentence (in "Re-transmission Behavior" paragraph of this page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/169292/en-us):

After computer "X's" retries are exhausted, you may not see a "Reset" right away. If computer "Y" finally responds, computer "X" may then reset the connection.

Thanks in advance and forgive me for my rudimentary english.

Regards

Upvotes: 1

Views: 710

Answers (1)

jman
jman

Reputation: 11596

In the absence of an ACK for the entire send window, the sender assumes that that the peer has gone away and silently cleans up the connection (no FINs or RSTs sent at this stage) after retries.

If the peer was actually alive and sends a packet on the old connection, the sender will then send a RST.

Upvotes: 2

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