A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries. RFC 5562 Title: Adding Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) Capability to TCP's SYN/ACK Packets Author: A. Kuzmanovic, A. Mondal, S. Floyd, K. Ramakrishnan Status: Experimental Date: June 2009 Mailbox: akuzma@northwestern.edu, a-mondal@northwestern.edu, floyd@icir.org, kkrama@research.att.com Pages: 33 Characters: 77110 Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso: None I-D Tag: draft-ietf-tcpm-ecnsyn-10.txt URL: http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5562.txt The proposal in this document is Experimental. While it may be deployed in the current Internet, it does not represent a consensus that this is the best possible mechanism for the use of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) in TCP SYN/ACK packets. This document describes an optional, experimental modification to RFC 3168 to allow TCP SYN/ACK packets to be ECN-Capable. For TCP, RFC 3168 specifies setting an ECN-Capable codepoint on data packets, but not on SYN and SYN/ACK packets. However, because of the high cost to the TCP transfer of having a SYN/ACK packet dropped, with the resulting retransmission timeout, this document describes the use of ECN for the SYN/ACK packet itself, when sent in response to a SYN packet with the two ECN flags set in the TCP header, indicating a willingness to use ECN. Setting the initial TCP SYN/ACK packet as ECN-Capable can be of great benefit to the TCP connection, avoiding the severe penalty of a retransmission timeout for a connection that has not yet started placing a load on the network. The TCP responder (the sender of the SYN/ACK packet) must reply to a report of an ECN-marked SYN/ACK packet by resending a SYN/ACK packet that is not ECN-Capable. If the resent SYN/ACK packet is acknowledged, then the TCP responder reduces its initial congestion window from two, three, or four segments to one segment, thereby reducing the subsequent load from that connection on the network. If instead the SYN/ACK packet is dropped, or for some other reason the TCP responder does not receive an acknowledgement in the specified time, the TCP responder follows TCP standards for a dropped SYN/ACK packet (setting the retransmission timer). This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. This document is a product of the TCP Maintenance and Minor Extensions Working Group of the IETF. EXPERIMENTAL: This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. This announcement is sent to the IETF-Announce and rfc-dist lists. To subscribe or unsubscribe, see http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce http://mailman.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-dist For searching the RFC series, see http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcsearch.html. For downloading RFCs, see http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc.html. Requests for special distribution should be addressed to either the author of the RFC in question, or to rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org. Unless specifically noted otherwise on the RFC itself, all RFCs are for unlimited distribution. The RFC Editor Team USC/Information Sciences Institute _______________________________________________ IETF-Announce@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce