Please explain the TIME_WAIT state.
Please explain the TIME_WAIT state.
Remember that TCP guarantees all data transmitted will be delivered,
if at all possible. When you close a socket, the server goes into a
TIME_WAIT state, just to be really really sure that all the data has
gone through. When a socket is closed, both sides agree by sending
messages to each other that they will send no more data. This, it
seemed to me was good enough, and after the handshaking is done, the
socket should be closed. The problem is two-fold. First, there is no
way to be sure that the last ack was communicated successfully.
Second, there may be "wandering duplicates" left on the net that must
be dealt with if they are delivered.
Andrew Gierth (andrew@erlenstar.demon.co.uk) helped to explain the
closing sequence in the following usenet posting:
Assume that a connection is in ESTABLISHED state, and the client is
about to do an orderly release. The client's sequence no. is Sc, and
the server's is Ss. The pipe is empty in both directions.
Client Server
====== ======
ESTABLISHED ESTABLISHED
(client closes)
ESTABLISHED ESTABLISHED
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