Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-pilc-link-arq-issues

draft-ietf-pilc-link-arq-issues





    Internet Engineering Task Force              Gorry Fairhurst
    INTERNET DRAFT                               University of Aberdeen
                                                 Lloyd Wood
                                                 Cisco Systems Ltd


                                                 March 2002
    draft-ietf-pilc-link-arq-issues-04.txt       Expires: September 2002



      Advice to link designers on link Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ)


 STATUS OF THIS MEMO

    This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
    all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

    Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
    Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
    other groups may also distribute working documents as
    Internet-Drafts.

    Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
    months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents
    at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as
    reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress".

    The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
    http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

    The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
    http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html


 ABSTRACT

    This document provides advice to the designers of digital
    communication equipment and link-layer protocols employing link-
    layer Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) techniques.  This document
    presumes that the designers wish to support Internet protocols, but
    may be unfamiliar with the architecture of the Internet and with the
    implications of their design choices on the performance and
    efficiency of Internet traffic carried over their links.

    ARQ is described in a general way that includes its use over a wide
    range of underlying physical media, including cellular wireless,
    wireless LANs, RF links, and other types of channel.  This document
    also describes issues relevant to supporting IP traffic over
    physical-layer channels where performance varies, and where link ARQ
    is likely to be used.


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 CONTENTS


    1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
       1.1 Link ARQ                                                 4
       1.2 Causes of packet loss on a link . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
       1.3 Why use ARQ?                                             6
       1.4 Commonly-used ARQ techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
           1.4.1 Stop-and-wait ARQ                                  7
           1.4.2 Sliding-window ARQ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
       1.5 Causes of delay across a link                            8
    2. ARQ persistence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
       2.1 Perfectly-persistent (reliable) ARQ protocols           10
       2.2 High-persistence (highly-reliable) ARQ protocols. . . . 11
       2.3 Low-persistence (partially-reliable) ARQ protocols      12
       2.4 Choosing your persistency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
       2.5 Impact of link outages                                  14
    3. Treatment of packets and flows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       3.1 Packet ordering                                         15
       3.2 Using link ARQ to support multiple flows . . . . . . . .16
       3.3 Differentiation of link service classes                 17
    4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
    5. Security implications                                       21
    6. IANA considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
    7. Acknowledgements                                            21
    8. References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
    Authors' addresses                                             24
    Full copyright statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25






 1. INTRODUCTION

    IP, the Internet Protocol [RFC791], forms the core protocol of the
    global Internet and defines a simple "connectionless" packet-
    switched network.  Over the years, Internet traffic using IP has
    been carried over a wide variety of links, of vastly different
    capacities, delays and loss characteristics.  In the future, IP
    traffic can be expected to continue to be carried over a very wide
    variety of new and existing link designs, again of varied
    characteristics.

    A companion document [DRAFTKARN02] describes the general issues
    associated with link design.  This document should be read in
    conjunction with that and with other documents produced by the
    Performance Implications of Link Characteristics (PILC) IETF
    workgroup [RFC3135, RFC3155].


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    This document is intended for three distinct groups of readers:

    a. Link designers wishing to configure (or tune) a link for the IP
       traffic that it will carry, using standard link-layer mechanisms
       such as the ISO High-level Data Link Control (HDLC) [ISO4335a] or
       its derivatives.

    b. Link implementers who may wish to design new link mechanisms that
       perform well for IP traffic.

    c. The community of people using or developing TCP, UDP and related
       protocols, who may wish to be aware of the ways in which links
       can operate.

    The primary audiences are intended to be groups (a) and (b).  Group
    (c) should not need to be aware of the exact details of an ARQ
    scheme across a single link, and should not have to consider such
    details for protocol implementations; much of the Internet runs
    across links that do not use any form of ARQ.  However, the TCP/IP
    community does need to be aware that the IP protocol operates over a
    diverse range of underlying subnetworks.  This document may help to
    raise that awareness.

    Perfect reliability is not a requirement for IP networks, nor is it
    a requirement for links [DRAFTKARN02].  IP networks may discard
    packets due to a variety of reasons entirely unrelated to channel
    errors, including lack of queuing space, congestion management,
    faults, and route changes.  It has long been widely understood that
    perfect end-to-end reliability can be ensured only at the transport
    layer [SALT81].

    Some familiarity with TCP, the Transmission Control Protocol
    [RFC793, STE94], is presumed here.  TCP provides a reliable byte-
    stream transport service, building upon the best-effort datagram
    delivery service provided by the Internet Protocol.  TCP achieves
    this by dividing data into TCP segments, and transporting these
    segments in IP packets.  TCP guarantees that a TCP session will
    retransmit the TCP segments contained in any data packets that are
    lost along the Internet path between endhosts.  TCP normally
    performs retransmission using its Fast Retransmit procedure, but if
    the loss fails to be detected (or retransmission is unsuccessful),
    TCP falls back to a Retransmission Time Out (RTO) retransmission
    using a timer [RFC2581]. (Link protocols also implement timers to
    verify integrity of the link, and to assist link ARQ.)  TCP also
    copes with any duplication or reordering introduced by the IP
    network.  There are a number of variants of TCP, with differing
    levels of sophistication in their procedures for handling loss
    recovery and congestion avoidance.  Far from being static, the TCP
    protocol is itself subject to ongoing gradual refinement and
    evolution, e.g. [RFC2488, RFC2760].


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    Internet networks may reasonably be expected to carry traffic from a
    wide and evolving range of applications.  Not all applications
    require or benefit from using the reliable service provided by TCP.
    In the Internet, these applications are carried by alternate
    transport protocols, such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
    [RFC768].


 1.1 LINK ARQ

    At the link layer, ARQ operates on blocks of data, known as frames,
    and attempts to deliver frames from the link sender to the link
    receiver over a channel.  The channel provides the physical-layer
    connection over which the link protocol operates.  In its simplest
    form, a channel may be a direct physical-layer connection between
    the two link nodes (e.g. across a length of cable or over a wireless
    medium). ARQ may also be used edge-to-edge across a subnetwork,
    where the path includes more than one physical-layer medium.
    Frames often have a small fixed or maximum size for convenience of
    processing by Medium-Access Control (MAC) and link protocols.  This
    contrasts with the variable lengths of IP datagrams, or 'packets'. A
    link-layer frame may contain all, or part of, one or more IP
    packets.  An link ARQ mechanism relies on an integrity check for
    each frame (e.g. strong link-layer CRC [DRAFTKARN02]) to detect
    channel errors, and uses a retransmission process to retransmit lost
    (i.e. missing or corrupted) frames.

    Links may be full-duplex (allowing two-way communication over
    separate forward and reverse channels), half-duplex (where two-way
    communication uses a shared forward and reverse channel, e.g. IrDA,
    IEEE 802.11) or simplex (where a single channel permits
    communication in only one direction).

    ARQ requires both a forward and return path, and therefore link ARQ
    may be used over links that employ full- or half-duplex links.  When
    a channel is shared between two or more link nodes, a link MAC
    protocol is required to ensure all nodes requiring transmission can
    gain access to the shared channel.  Such schemes may add to the
    delay (jitter) associated with transmission of packet data and ARQ
    control frames.

    When using ARQ over a link where the probability of frame loss is
    related to the frame size, there is an optimal frame size for any
    specific target channel error rate.  To allow for efficient use of
    the channel, this maximum link frame size may be considerably lower
    than the maximum IP datagram size  specified by the IP Maximum
    Transmission Unit (MTU). Each frame will then contain only a
    fraction of an IP packet, and transparent implicit fragmentation of
    the IP datagram is used [DRAFTKARN02].  A smaller frame size
    introduces more frame header overhead per payload byte transported.


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    Explicit network-layer IP fragmentation is undesirable for a variety
    of reasons, and should be avoided [KEN88, DRAFTKARN02].  Its use can
    be minimized with use of Path MTU discovery [RFC1191, RFC1435,
    RFC1981].

    Another way to reduce the frame loss rate (or reduce transmit signal
    power for the same rate of frame loss) is to use coding, e.g.
    Forward Error Correction (FEC) [LIN93].

    FEC is commonly included in the physical-layer design of wireless
    links and may be used simultaneously with link ARQ.  FEC schemes
    which combine modulation and coding also exist, and may also be
    adaptive.  Hybrid ARQ [LIN93] combines adaptive FEC with link ARQ
    procedures to reduce the probability of loss of retransmitted
    frames.  Interleaving may also be used to reduce the probability of
    frame loss by dispersing the occurrence of errors more widely in the
    channel to improve error recovery; this adds further delay to the
    channelËs existing propagation delay.

    The document does not consider the use of link ARQ to support a
    broadcast or multicast service within a subnetwork, where a link may
    send a single packet to more than one recipient using a single link
    transmit operation.  Although such schemes are supported in some
    subnetworks, they raise a number of additional issues.

    Links supporting stateful reservation-based quality of service (QoS)
    according to the Integrated Services (intserv) model are also not
    explicitly discussed.



 1.2 CAUSES OF PACKET LOSS ON A LINK

    Not all packets sent to a link are necessarily received successfully
    by the receiver at the other end of the link.  There are a number of
    possible causes of packet loss.  These may occur as frames travel
    across a link, and include:

    a. Loss due to channel noise, often characterised by random frame
       loss. Channel noise may also result from other traffic degrading
       channel conditions.

    b. Frame loss due to channel interference.  This interference can
       be random, structured, and in some cases even periodic.

    c. A link outage, a period during which the link loses all or
       virtually all frames, until the link is restored.  This is a common
       characteristic of some types of link, e.g. mobile cellular radio.

    Other forms of packet loss are not related to channel conditions,
    but include:

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    i.   Loss of a frame transmitted in a shared channel where a
         contention-aware MAC protocol is used (e.g. due to collision).
         Here, many protocols require that retransmission is deferred to
         promote stability of the shared channel (i.e. prevent excessive
         channel contention). This is discussed further in section 1.5.

    ii.  Packet discards due to congestion.  Queues will eventually
         overflow as the arrival rate of new packets to send continues to
         exceed the outgoing packet transmission rate over the link.

    iii. Loss due to implementation errors, including hardware faults
         and software errors.  This is recognised as a common cause of
         packet corruption detected in the endhosts [STONE00].

    The rate of loss and patterns of loss experienced are functions of
    the design of the physical and link layers.  These vary
    significantly across different link configurations.  The performance
    of a specific implementation may also vary considerably across the
    same link configuration when operated over different types of
    channel.



 1.3 WHY USE ARQ?

    Reasons that encourage considering the use of ARQ include:

    a.   ARQ across a single link has a faster control loop than TCPËs
         acknowledgement control loop, which takes place over the longer
         end-to-end path over which TCP must operate.  It is therefore
         possible for ARQ to provide more rapid retransmission of TCP
         segments lost on the link, at least for a reasonable number of
         retries [RFC3155, SALT81].

    b.   Link ARQ can operate on individual frames, using implicit
         transparent link fragmentation [DRAFTKARN02].  Frames may be
         much smaller than IP packets, and repetition of smaller frames
         containing lost or errored parts of an IP packet may improve the
         efficiency of the ARQ process and the efficiency of the link.

    A link ARQ procedure may be able to use local knowledge that is not
    available to endhosts, in order to optimise delivery performance for
    the current link conditions.  This information can include
    information about the state of the link and channel, e.g. knowledge
    of the current available transmission rate, the prevailing error
    environment, or available transmit power in wireless links.





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 1.4 COMMONLY-USED ARQ TECHNIQUES

    A link ARQ protocol uses a link protocol mechanism to allow the
    sender to detect lost or corrupted frames and to schedule
    retransmission.  Detection of frame loss may be via a link protocol
    timer, by detecting missing positive link acknowledgment frames, by
    receiving explicit negative acknowledgment frames and/or by polling
    the link receiver status.

    Whatever the mechanisms that are chosen, there are two easily-
    described categories of ARQ retransmission process that are widely
    used:


 1.4.1 STOP-AND-WAIT ARQ

    A sender using stop-and-wait ARQ (sometimes known as ËIdle ARQË
    [LIN93]) transmits a single frame and then waits for an
    acknowledgement from the receiver for that frame.  The sender then
    either continues transmission with the next frame, or repeats
    transmission of the same frame if the acknowledgement indicates that
    the original frame was lost or corrupted.

    Stop-and-wait ARQ is simple, if inefficient, for protocol designers
    to implement, and therefore popular, e.g. tftp [RFC1350] at the
    transport layer.  However, when stop-and-wait ARQ is used in the
    link layer, it is well-suited only to links with low bandwidth-delay
    products.  This technique is not discussed further in this document.


 1.4.2 SLIDING-WINDOW ARQ

    A protocol using sliding-window link ARQ [LIN93] numbers every frame
    with a unique sequence number, according to a modulus.  The modulus
    defines the numbering base for frame sequence numbers, and the size
    of the sequence space.  The largest sequence number value is viewed
    by the link protocol as contiguous with the first (0), since the
    numbering space wraps around.

    TCP is itself a sliding-window protocol at the transport layer
    [STE94], so similarities between a link-interface-to-link-interface
    protocol and end-to-end TCP may be recognisable.  A sliding-window
    link protocol is much more complex in implementation than the
    simpler stop-and-wait protocol described in the previous section,
    particularly if per-flow ordering is preserved.

    At any time the link sender may have a number of frames outstanding
    and awaiting acknowledgement, up to the space available in its
    transmission window.  A sufficiently-large link sender window
    (equivalent to or greater than the number of frames sent, or larger
    than the bandwidth*delay product capacity of the link) permits
    continuous transmission of new frames.  A smaller link sender window

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    causes the sender to pause transmission of new frames until a
    timeout or a control frame, such as an acknowledgement, is received.
    When frames are lost, a larger window, i.e. more than the link's
    bandwidth*delay product, is needed to allow continuous operation
    while frame retransmission takes place.

    The modulus numbering space determines the size of the frame header
    sequence number field.  This sequence space needs to be larger than
    the link window size and, if using selective repeat ARQ, larger than
    twice the link window size.  For continuous operation, the sequence
    space should be larger than the product of the link capacity and the
    link ARQ persistence (discussed in section 2.), so that in-flight
    frames can be identified uniquely.

    As with TCP, which provides sliding-window delivery across an entire
    end-to-end path rather than across a single link, there are a large
    number of variations on the basic sliding-window implementation,
    with increased complexity and sophistication to make them suitable
    for various conditions.  Selective Repeat (SR), also known as
    Selective Reject (SREJ), and Go-Back-N, also known as Reject (REJ),
    are examples of ARQ techniques using protocols implementing sliding
    window ARQ.



 1.5 CAUSES OF DELAY ACROSS A LINK

    Links and link protocols contribute to the total path delay
    experienced between communicating applications on endhosts.  Delay
    has a number of causes, including:

    a.   Input packet queuing and frame buffering at the link head before
         transmission over the channel.

    b.   Retransmission back-off, an additional delay introduced for
         retransmissions by some MAC schemes when operating over a shared
         channel to prevent excessive contention. A high level of
         contention may otherwise arise, if, for example, a set of link
         receivers all retransmitted immediately after a collision on a
         busy shared channel.  Link ARQ protocols designed for shared
         channels may select a backoff delay, which increases with the
         number of attempts taken to retransmit a frame; analogies can be
         drawn with end-to-end TCP congestion avoidance at the transport
         layer [RFC2581]. In contrast, a link over a dedicated channel
         (which has capacity pre-allocated to the link) may send a
         retransmission at the earliest possible time.

    c.   Waiting for access to the allocated channel when the channel is
         shared.  There may be processing or protocol-induced delay
         before transmission takes place [FER99, PAR00].


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    d.   Frame serialisation and transmission processing.  These are
         functions of frame size and the transmission speed of the link.

    e.   Physical-layer propagation time, limited by the speed of
         transmission of the signal in the physical medium of the
         channel.

    f.   Per-frame processing, including the cost of QoS scheduling,
         encryption, FEC and interleaving.  FEC and interleaving also add
         substantial delay and, in some cases, additional jitter.  Hybrid
         link ARQ schemes [LIN93], in particular, may incur significant
         receiver processing delay.

    g.   Packet processing, including buffering frame contents at the
         link receiver for packet reassembly, before onward transmission
         of the packet.

    When link ARQ is used, steps (b), (c), (d), (e), and (f) may be
    repeated a number of times, every time that retransmission of a frame
    occurs, increasing overall delay for the packet carried in part by the
    frame.  Adaptive ARQ schemes (e.g. hybrid ARQ using adaptive FEC
    codes) may also incur extra per-frame processing for retransmitted
    frames.

    It is important to understand that applications and transport
    protocols at the endhosts are unaware of the individual delays
    contributed by each link in the path, and only see the overall path
    delay.  Application performance is therefore determined by the
    cumulative delay of the entire end-to-end Internet path.  This path
    may include an arbitrary or even a widely-fluctuating number of
    links, where any link may or may not use ARQ.  As a result, it is
    not possible to state fixed limits on the acceptable delay that a
    link can add to a path; other links in the path will add an unknown
    delay.



 2. ARQ PERSISTENCE

    ARQ protocols may be characterised by their persistency.  Persistence
    is the willingness of the protocol to retransmit lost frames to
    ensure reliable delivery of traffic across the link.

    A link's retransmission persistency defines how long the link is
    allowed to delay a packet, in an attempt to transmit all the frames
    carrying the packet and its content over the link, before giving up
    and discarding the packet.  This persistency can normally be
    measured in milliseconds, but may, if the link propagation delay is
    specified, be expressed in terms of the maximum number of link
    retransmission attempts permitted.  The latter does not always map
    onto an exact time limit, for the reasons discussed in section 1.5.

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    An example of a reliable link protocol that is perfectly persistent
    is the ISO HDLC protocol in the Asynchronous Balanced Mode (ABM)
    [ISO4335a].

    A protocol that only retransmits a number of times before giving up
    is less persistent, e.g. Ethernet [FER99], IEEE 802.11, or GSM RLP
    [RFC2757].  Here, lower persistence also ensures stability and fair
    sharing of a shared channel, even when many senders are attempting
    retransmissions.

    TCP, STCP [RFC2960] and a number of applications using UDP (e.g.
    tftp) implement their own end-to-end reliable delivery mechanisms.
    Many TCP and UDP applications, e.g. streaming multimedia, benefit
    from timely delivery from lower layers with sufficient reliability,
    rather than perfect reliability with increased link delays.



 2.1 PERFECTLY-PERSISTENT (RELIABLE) ARQ PROTOCOLS

    A perfectly-persistent ARQ protocol is one that attempts to provide
    a reliable service, i.e. in-order delivery of packets to the other
    end of the link, with no missing packets and no duplicate packets.
    The perfectly-persistent ARQ protocol will repeat a lost or
    corrupted frame an indefinite (and potentially infinite) number of
    times until the frame is successfully received.

    If traffic is going no further than across one link, and losses do
    not occur within the endhosts, perfect persistence ensures
    reliability between the two link ends without requiring any higher-
    layer protocols.  This reliability can become counterproductive for
    traffic traversing multiple links, as it duplicates and interacts
    with functionality in protocol mechanisms at higher layers [SALT81].

    Arguments against use of perfect persistence for IP traffic include:

    a.   Variable link delay; the impact of ARQ introduces a degree of
         jitter, a function of the physical-layer delay and frame
         serialisation and transmission times (discussed in section 1.5),
         to all flows sharing a link performing frame retransmission.

    b.   Perfect persistence does not provide a clear upper bound on the
         maximum retransmission delay for the link.  Significant changes
         in path delay caused by excessive link retransmissions may lead
         to timeouts of TCP retransmission timers, although a high
         variance in link delay and the resulting overall path delay may
         also cause a large TCP RTO value to be selected [LUD99b, PAR00].
         This will alter TCP throughput, decreasing overall performance,
         but, in mitigation, it can also decrease the occurrence of
         timeouts due to continued packet loss.

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    c.   Applications needing perfectly-reliable delivery can implement a
         form of perfectly-persistent ARQ themselves, or use a reliable
         transport protocol within the endhosts.  Implementing perfect
         persistence at each link along the path between the endhosts is
         redundant, but cannot ensure the same reliability as end-to-end
         transport [SALT81].

    d.   Link ARQ should not adversely delay the flow of end-to-end
         control information.  As an example, the ARQ retransmission of
         data for one or more flows should not excessively extend the
         protocol control loops.  Excessive delay of duplicate TCP
         acknowledgments (dupacks [STE94, BAL97]), SACK, or Explicit
         Congestion Notification (ECN) indicators will reduce the
         responsiveness of TCP flows to congestion events.  Similar
         issues exist for TCP-Friendly Rate Control (TFRC), where
         equation-based congestion control is used with UDP [DRAFTHAN01].


    Perfectly-persistent link protocols that perform unlimited ARQ, i.e.
    that continue to retransmit frames indefinitely until the frames are
    successfully received, are seldom found in real implementations.

    Most practical link protocols give up retransmission at some point,
    but do not necessarily do so with the intention of bounding the ARQ
    retransmission persistence.  A protocol may, for instance, terminate
    retransmission after a link connection failure, e.g. after no frames
    have been successfully received within a pre-configured timer
    period.  The time a protocol retransmits a specific frame (or the
    maximum number of retransmissions) therefore becomes a function of
    many different parameters (ARQ procedure, link timer values, and
    procedure for link monitoring), rather than being pre-configured.
    Another common feature of this type of behaviour is that some
    protocol implementers presume that, after a link failure, packets
    queued to be sent over the link are no longer significant and can be
    discarded when giving up ARQ retransmission.

    Examples of ARQ protocols that are perfectly persistent include
    ISO/ITU-T LAP-B [ISO7776] and ISO HDLC in the Asynchronously
    Balanced Mode (ABM) [ISO4335a], e.g. using Multiple Selective Reject
    (MSREJ [ISO4335b]).  These protocols will retransmit a frame an
    unlimited number of times until receipt of the frame is
    acknowledged.



 2.2 HIGH-PERSISTENCE (HIGHLY-RELIABLE) ARQ PROTOCOLS

    High-persistence ARQ protocols limit the time (or number of
    attempts) that ARQ may retransmit a particular frame before the
    sender gives up on retransmission of the missing frame and moves on

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    to forwarding subsequent buffered in-sequence frames.  Ceasing
    retransmission of a frame does not imply a lack of link connectivity
    and does not cause a link protocol state change.

    It has been recommended that a single IP packet should never be
    delayed by the network for more than the Maximum Segment Lifetime
    (MSL) of 120 seconds defined for TCP [RFC1122]. It is, however,
    difficult in practice to bound the maximum path delay of an Internet
    path.  One case where segment (packet) lifetime may be significant
    is where alternate paths of different delays exist between endhosts
    and route flapping or flow-unaware traffic engineering is used. Some
    TCP packets may follow a short path, while others follow a much
    longer path, e.g. using persistent ARQ over a link outage.

    Failure to limit the maximum packet lifetime can result in TCP
    sequence numbers wrapping at high transmission rates, where old data
    segments may be confused with newer segments if the sequence number
    space has been exhausted and reused in the interim.  Some TCP
    implementations use the Round Trip Timestamp Measurement (RTTM)
    option in TCP packets to remove this ambiguity, using the Protection
    Against Wrapped Sequence number (PAWS) algorithm [RFC1323].

    In practice, the MSL is usually very large compared to the typical
    TCP RTO.  The calculation of TCP RTO is based on estimated round-
    trip path delay.  If the number of link retransmissions causes a
    path delay larger than the value of RTO, the TCP retransmission
    timer can expire, leading to a timeout and retransmission of a
    segment (packet) by the TCP sender.

    Although high persistency may benefit bulk flows, the additional
    delay (and variations in delay) that it introduces may be highly
    undesirable for other types of flows.  Being able to treat flows
    separately, with different classes of link service, is useful, and
    is discussed in section 3.

    Examples of high-persistence ARQ protocols include [BHA97, ECK98,
    LUD99a, MEY99].



 2.3 LOW-PERSISTENCE (PARTIALLY-RELIABLE) ARQ PROTOCOLS

    The characteristics of a link using a low-persistence ARQ protocol
    may be summarised as:

    a.   The link is not perfectly reliable and does not provide an
         absolute guarantee of delivery, i.e. the transmitter will
         discard some frames as it 'gives up' before receiving an
         acknowledgement of successful transmission across the link.



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    b.   There is a lowered limit on the maximum added delay that IP
         packets will experience when travelling across the link
         (typically lower than the TCP path RTO).  This reduces
         interaction with TCP timers or with UDP-based error-control
         schemes.

    c.   The link offers a low bound for the time that retransmission for
         any one frame can block completed transmission and assembly of
         other correctly and completely-received IP packets whose
         transmission was begun before the missing frame was sent.
         Limiting delay avoids aggravating contention or interaction
         between different packet flows (see also section 3.2).

    Examples of low-persistence ARQ protocols include [SAM96, WARD95,
    CHE00].



 2.4 CHOOSING YOUR PERSISTENCY

    The TCP Maximum RTO is an upper limit on the maximum time that TCP
    will wait until it performs a retransmission.  Most TCP
    implementations will generally have a TCP RTO of at least several
    times the path delay.

    Setting a lower link persistency (e.g. of the order 2-5
    retransmission attempts) reduces potential interaction with the TCP
    RTO timer, and may therefore reduce the probability of duplicate
    copies of the same packet being present in the link transmit buffer
    under some patterns of loss.

    A link using a physical layer with a low propagation delay may allow
    tens of retransmission attempts to deliver a single frame, and still
    satisfy a bound for (b) in section 2.3.  In this case, a low delay
    is defined as being where the total packet transmission time across
    the link is much less than 100 ms (a common value for the
    granularity of the internal TCP system timer).

    A packet may traverse a number of successive links on its total end-
    to-end path.  This is therefore an argument for much lower
    persistency on any individual link, as delay due to persistency is
    accumulated along the path taken by each packet.

    Some implementers have chosen a lower persistence, falling back on
    the judgement of TCP or a UDP application to retransmit any packets
    that are not recovered by the link ARQ protocol.






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 2.5 IMPACT OF LINK OUTAGES

    Links experiencing persistent loss, where many consecutive frames
    are corrupted over an extended time, may also need to be considered.
    Examples of channel behaviour leading to link outages include
    fading, roaming, and some forms of interference.  During the loss
    event, there is an increased probability that a retransmission
    request may be corrupted, and/or an increased probability that a
    retransmitted frame will also be lost.  This type of loss event is
    often known as a "transient outage".

    If the transient outage extends for longer than the TCP RTO, the TCP
    sender will also perform transport-layer retransmission.  At the
    same time, the TCP sender will reduce its congestion window (cwnd)
    to 1 segment (packet), recalculate its RTO, and wait for an ACK
    packet.  If no acknowledgement is received, TCP will retransmit
    again, up to a retry limit. TCP only determines that the outage is
    over (i.e. that path capacity is restored) by receipt of an ACK.  If
    link ARQ protocol persistency causes a link in the path to discard
    the ACK, the TCP sender must wait for the next RTO retransmission
    and its ACK to learn that the link is restored.  This can be many
    seconds after the end of the transient outage.

    When a link layer is able to differentiate a set of link service
    classes (see section 3.3), a link ARQ persistency longer than the
    largest link loss event may benefit a TCP session.  This would allow
    TCP to rapidly restore transmission without the need to wait for a
    retransmission time out, generally improving TCP performance in the
    face of transient outages.  Implementation of such schemes remains a
    research issue.

    When an outage occurs for a sender sharing a common channel with
    other nodes, uncontrolled high persistence can continue to consume
    transmission resources for the duration of the outage.  This may be
    undesirable, since it reduces the capacity available for other nodes
    sharing the channel, which do not necessarily experience the same
    outage.  These nodes could otherwise use the channel for more
    productive transfers.  The persistence is often limited by another
    controlling mechanism in such cases.  To counter such contention
    effects, ARQ protocols may delay retransmission requests, or defer
    retransmission of requested frames until the outage ends for the
    sender.

    An alternate suggested approach for a link layer that is able to
    identify separate flows is to use low link persistency (section 2.3)
    along with a higher-layer mechanism, for example one that attempts
    to deliver one TCP packet (whole TCP segment) per TCP flow after a
    loss event [DRAFTKARN02].  This is intended to ensure that TCP
    transmission is restored rapidly.  Algorithms to implement this
    remain an area of research.


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 3. TREATMENT OF PACKETS AND FLOWS


 3.1 PACKET ORDERING

    A common debate is whether a link should be allowed to forward
    packets in an order different to that in which they were originally
    received at its transmit interface.

    IP networks are not required to deliver all IP packets in order,
    although generally networks do deliver most IP packets in their
    original transmission order.  Routers supporting class-based queuing
    do reorder received packets, by reordering packets in different
    flows, but these usually retain per-flow ordering.

    Policy-based queuing, allowing fairer access to the link, may also
    reorder packets.  There is still much debate on optimal algorithms,
    and on optimal queue sizes for particular link speeds.  This,
    however, is not related to use of link ARQ and applies to any
    (potential) bottleneck router.

    Although small amounts of reordering are common in IP networks
    [BEN00], significant re-ordering within a flow is undesirable as it
    can have a number of effects:

    a.   Reordering will increase packet jitter for real-time
         applications.  This may lead to application data loss if a small
         play-out buffer is used by the receiving application.

    b.   Reordering will interleave arrival of TCP segments, leading to
         generation of duplicate ACKs (dupacks), leading to assumptions
         of loss.  Reception of an ACK followed by a sequence of three
         identical dupacks causes the TCP sender to trigger fast
         retransmission and recovery, a form of congestion avoidance,
         since TCP always presumes that packet loss is due to congestion
         [RFC2581, STE94].  This reduces TCP throughput efficiency as far
         as the application is concerned, although it should not impact
         data integrity.

    In addition, reordering may negatively impact processing by some
    existing poorly-implemented TCP/IP stacks, by leading to unwanted
    side-effects in poorly-implemented IP fragment reassembly code,
    poorly-implemented IP demultiplexing (filter) code, or poorly-
    implemented UDP applications.

    Ordering effects must also be considered when breaking the end-to-
    end paradigm and evaluating transport-layer relays such as split-TCP
    implementations or Protocol Enhancing Proxies [RFC3135].



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    As with total path delay, TCP and UDP flows are impacted by the
    cumulative effect of reordering along the entire path.  Link
    protocol designers must not assume that their link is the only link
    undertaking packet reordering, as some level of reordering may be
    introduced by other links along the same path, or by router
    processing within the network [BEN00].  Ideally, the link protocol
    should not contribute to reordering within a flow, or at least
    ensure that it does not significantly increase the level of
    reordering within the flow.  To achieve this, buffering is required
    at the link receiver.  The total amount of buffering required is a
    function of the linkËs bandwidth*delay product and the level of ARQ
    persistency, and is bounded by the link window size.

    A number of experimental ARQ protocols have allowed out-of-order
    delivery [BAL95, SAM96, WARD95].



 3.2 USING LINK ARQ TO SUPPORT MULTIPLE FLOWS

    Most links can be expected to carry more than one IP flow at a time.
    Some high-capacity links are expected to carry a very large number
    of simultaneous flows, often from and to a large number of different
    endhosts.  With use of multiple applications at an endhost, multiple
    flows can be considered the norm rather than the exception, even for
    last-hop links.

    When packets from several flows are simultaneously in transit within
    a link ARQ protocol, ARQ may cause a number of additional effects:

    a.   ARQ introduces variable delay (jitter) to a TCP flow sharing a
         link with another flow experiencing loss.  This additional
         delay, introduced by the need for a link to provide in-sequence
         delivery of packets, may adversely impact other applications
         sharing the link, and can increase the duration of the initial
         slow-start period for TCP flows for these applications.  This is
         significant for short-lived TCP flows (e.g. those used by
         HTTP/1.0 and earlier), which spend most of their lives in slow-
         start.

    b.   ARQ introduces jitter to UDP flows that share a link with
         another flow experiencing loss.  An end-to-end protocol may not
         require reliable delivery for its flows, particularly if it is
         supporting a delay-sensitive application.

    c.   High-persistence ARQ may delay packets long enough to cause
         premature timeout of another TCP flow's RTO timer, although
         modern TCP implementations should not experience this since
         their computed RTO values should leave sufficient margin over
         path RTTs to cope with reasonable amounts of jitter.


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    Reordering of packets belonging to different flows may be desirable
    [LUD99b, CHE00] to achieve fair sharing of the link between
    established bulk-data transfer sessions and sessions that transmit
    less data, but would benefit from lower link transit delay.
    Preserving ordering within each individual flow, to avoid the
    effects of reordering described earlier in section 3.1, is
    worthwhile.



 3.3 DIFFERENTIATION OF LINK SERVICE CLASSES

    High ARQ persistency is generally considered unsuitable for many
    applications using UDP, where reliable delivery is not always
    required and where it may introduce unacceptable jitter, but may
    benefit bulk data transfers under certain link conditions.  A scheme
    that differentiates packet flows into two or more classes, to
    provide different service to each class, is therefore desirable.

    Observation of flow behaviour can tell you which flows are
    controlled and congestion-sensitive, or uncontrolled and not, so
    that you can treat them differently and ensure fairness.  However,
    this cannot tell you whether a flow is intended as reliable or
    unreliable by its application, or what the application requires for
    best operation.

    Supporting different link services for different classes of flows
    therefore requires that the link is able to distinguish the
    different flows from each other.  This generally needs an explicit
    indication of the class associated with each flow.

    Some potential schemes for indicating the class of a packet include:

    a.   Using the Type of Service (ToS) bits in the IP header [RFC791].
         The IETF has replaced these globally-defined bits, which were
         not widely used, with the differentiated services model
         (diffserv [RFC2475]).  In diffserv, each packet carries a
         Differentiated Service Code Point (DSCP), which indicates which
         one of a set of diffserv classes the flow belongs to.  Each
         router maps the DSCP value of a received IP packet to one of a
         set of Per Hop Behaviours (PHBs) as the packet is processed
         within the network.  Diffserv uses include policy-based routing,
         class-based queuing, and support for other QoS metrics,
         including IP packet priority, delay, reliability, and cost.

    b.   Inspecting the network packet header and viewing the IP protocol
         type [RFC791] to gain an idea of the transport protocol used and
         thus guess its needs.  This is not possible when carrying an
         encrypted payload, e.g. using the IP security extensions (IPSec)


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         with Encapsulation Security Payload (ESP) [RFC1827] payload
         encryption.

    c.   By inspecting the transport packet header information to view
         the TCP or UDP headers and port numbers (e.g. [PAR00, BAL95]).
         This is not possible when using payload encryption, e.g. IPSec
         with ESP [RFC1827] payload encryption, and incurs processing
         overhead for each packet sent over the link.

    There are, however, some drawbacks to these schemes:

    i.   The ToS/Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) values
         [RFC2475] may not be set reliably, and may be overwritten by
         intermediate routers along the packet's path.  These values may
         be set by an ISP, and do not necessarily indicate the level of
         reliability required by the end application.  The link must be
         configured with knowledge of the local meaning of the values.

    ii.  Tunnelling of traffic (e.g. GRE, MPLS, L2TP, IP-in-IP
         encapsulation) can aggregate flows of different transport
         classes, complicating individual flow classification with
         schemes (b) and (c) and incurring further header processing if
         tunnel contents are inspected.

    iii. Use of the TCP/UDP port number makes assumptions about
         application behaviour and requirements.  New applications or
         protocols can invalidate these assumptions, as can the use of
         e.g. Network Address Port Translation, where port numbers are
         remapped [RFC3022].

    iv.  In IPv6, the entire IPv6 header must be parsed to locate the
         transport layer protocol, adding complexity to header
         inspection.  Again, this assumes that IPSec payload encryption
         is not used.

    Despite the difficulties in providing a framework for accurate flow
    identification, approach (a) may be beneficial, and is preferable to
    adding optimisations that are triggered by inspecting the contents
    of specific IP packets.  Some such optimisations are discussed in
    detail in [LUD99b].

    Flow management is desirable; clear flow identification increases
    the number of tools available for the link designer, and permits
    more complex ARQ strategies that may otherwise make misassumptions
    about traffic requirements and behaviour when flow identification is
    not done.

    Links that are unable to distinguish clearly and safely between
    delay-sensitive flows, e.g. real-time multimedia, DNS queries or
    telnet, and delay-insensitive flows, e.g. bulk ftp transfers or
    reliable multicast file transfer, cannot separate link service

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    classes safely.  All flows should therefore experience the same link
    behaviour.

    In general, if separation of flows according to class is not
    practicable, a low persistency is best for link ARQ.




 4. CONCLUSIONS

    A number of techniques may be used by link protocol designers to
    counter the effects of channel errors / loss. One of these is
    Automatic Repeat ReQuest, ARQ, which has been and continues to be
    used on links that carry IP traffic.  An ARQ protocol retransmits
    link frames that have been corrupted during transmission across a
    channel.  Link ARQ may significantly improve the probability of
    successful transmission of IP packets over links prone to occasional
    frame loss.

    A lower rate of packet loss generally benefits transport protocols
    and endhost applications.  Applications using TCP generally benefit
    from Internet paths with little or no loss and low round trip path
    delay.  This reduces impact on applications, allows more rapid
    growth of TCPËs congestion window during slow start, and ensures
    prompt reaction to end-to-end protocol exchanges (e.g.
    retransmission, congestion indications).  Applications using other
    transport protocols, e.g. UDP or SCTP, also benefit from low loss
    and timely delivery.

    A side-effect of link ARQ is that link transit delay is increased
    when frames are retransmitted.  At low error rates, many of the
    details of ARQ, such as degree of persistence or resulting out-of-
    order delivery, become unimportant.  Most frame losses will be
    resolved in one or two retransmission attempts, and this is
    generally unlikely to cause significant impact to e.g. TCP.
    However, on shared high-delay links, the impact of ARQ on other UDP
    or TCP flows may lead to unwanted jitter.

    Where error rates are highly variable, high link ARQ persistence may
    provide good performance for a single TCP flow.  However,
    interactions between flows can arise when many flows share capacity
    on the same link.  A link ARQ procedure that provides flow
    management will be beneficial.  Lower ARQ persistence may also have
    merit, and is preferable for applications using UDP.  The reasoning
    here is that the link can perform useful work forwarding some
    complete packets, and that blocking all flows by retransmitting the
    frames of a single packet with high persistence is undesirable.

    During a link outage, interactions between ARQ and multiple flows
    are less significant; the ARQ protocol is likely to be equally

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    unsuccessful in retransmitting frames for all flows.  High
    persistence may benefit TCP flows, by enabling prompt recovery once
    the channel is restored.

    Low ARQ persistence is particularly useful where it is difficult or
    impossible to classify traffic flows, and hence treat each flow
    independently, and where the link capacity can accommodate a large
    number of simultaneous flows.

    Link ARQ designers should consider the implications of their design
    on the wider Internet.  Effects such as increased transit delay,
    jitter, and re-ordering are cumulative when performed on multiple
    links along an Internet path.  It is therefore very hard to say how
    many ARQ links may exist in series along an arbitrary Internet path
    between endhosts, especially as the path taken and its links may
    change over time.

    In summary, when links cannot classify traffic flows and treat them
    separately, low persistence is generally desirable; preserving
    packet ordering is generally desirable.  Extremely high persistence
    and perfect persistence are generally undesirable; highly-persistent
    ARQ is a bad idea unless flow classification and detailed and
    accurate knowledge of flow requirements make it possible to deploy
    high persistency where it will be beneficial.

    There is currently insufficient experience to recommend a specific
    ARQ scheme for any class of link.  It is also important to realize
    that link ARQ is just one method of error recovery, and that other
    complementary physical-layer techniques may be used instead of, or
    together with, ARQ to improve overall link throughput for IP
    traffic.

    The choice of potential schemes includes adapting the data rate,
    adapting the signal bandwidth, adapting the transmission power,
    adaptive modulation, adaptive information redundancy / forward error
    control, and interleaving.  All of these schemes can be used to
    improve the received signal energy per bit, and hence reduce error,
    frame loss and resulting packet loss rates given specific channel
    conditions.

    There is a need for more research to more clearly identify the
    importance of and trade-offs between the above issues over various
    types of link and over various types of channels.  It would be
    useful if researchers and implementers clearly indicated the loss
    model, link capacity and characteristics, link and end-to-end path
    delays, details of TCP, and the number (and details) of flows
    sharing a link when describing their experiences. In each case, it
    is recommended that specific details of the link characteristics and
    mechanisms are also considered; solutions vary with conditions.



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 5. SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

    No security implications have been identified as directly impacting
    IP traffic.  However, an unreliable link service may adversely
    impact some link-layer key management distribution protocols if
    encryption is used over such a link.

    Denial-of-service attacks exploiting the behaviour of the link
    protocol, e.g. using knowledge of its retransmission behaviour and
    propagation delay to cause a particular form of jamming, may be
    specific to an individual link scenario.



 6. IANA CONSIDERATIONS

    No assignments from the IANA are required.



 7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    Much of what is described here has been developed from a summary of
    a subset of the discussions on the archived IETF PILC mailing list.
    We thank the contributors to PILC for vigorous debate.

    In particular, the authors would like to thank Spencer Dawkins,
    Aaron Falk, Dan Grossman, Merkourios Karaliopoulos, Gary Kenwood,
    Reiner Ludwig and Jean Tourrilhes for their detailed comments.




 8. REFERENCES

    References of the form RFCnnnn are Internet Request for Comments
    (RFC) documents available online at http://www.rfc-editor.org/.


    [BAL95] Balakrishnan, H., Seshan, S. and R. H. Katz, Improving
    Reliable Transport and Handoff Performance in Cellular Wireless
    Networks, ACM MOBICOM, Berkeley, 1995.

    [BAL97] Balakrishnan, H., Padmanabhan, V. N., Seshan, S. and R. H.
    Katz, A Comparison of Mechanisms for Improving TCP Performance over
    Wireless Links, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 5(6), pp. 756-
    759, 1997.

    [BEN00] Bennett, J. C., Partridge, C. and N. Schectman, Packet
    Reordering is Not Pathological Network Behaviour, IEEE/ACM
    Transactions on Networking, 7(6), pp. 789-798, 2000.

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    [BHA97] Bhagwat, P., Bhattacharya, P, Krishna A. and S. K. Tripathi,
    Using channel state dependent packet scheduling to improve TCP
    throughput over wireless LANs, ACM/Baltzer Wireless Networks
    Journal, (3)1, 1997.

    [CHE00] Cheng, H S., G. Fairhurst et al., An Efficient Partial
    Retransmission ARQ Strategy with Error Codes by Feedback Channel,
    IEE Proceedings - Communications, (147)5, pp. 263-268, 2000.

    [DRAFTKARN02] Karn, P. (editor) et al., Advice for Internet
    Subnetwork Designers, draft-ietf-pilc-link-design-nn.txt, work in
    progress as internet-draft, 2002.

    [DRAFTHAN01] Handley, M., Floyd, S. and J. Widmer, TCP Friendly Rate
    Control (TFRC): Protocol Specification, draft-ietf-tsvwg-tfrc-nn
    .txt, work in progress as internet-draft, 2001.

    [ECK98] Eckhardt, D. A., and P. Steenkiste, Improving Wireless LAN
    Performance via Adaptive Local Error Control, IEEE ICNP, 1998.

    [FER99] A. Ferrero, The Eternal Ethernet, Addison-Wesley, 1999.

    [ISO4335a]  HDLC Procedures: Specification for Consolidation of
    Elements of Procedures, ISO 4335 and AD/1, International
    Standardization Organization, 1985.

    [ISO4335b] HDLC Procedures: Elements of Procedures, Amendment 4:
    Multi-Selective Reject Option, ISO 4335/4, International Standards
    Organization, 1991.

    [ISO7776] Specification for X.25 LAPB-Compatible DTE Data Link
    Procedures, ISO 4335/4, International Standards Organization, 1985.

    [KEN88] Kent, C. A. and J. C. Mogul, Fragmentation Considered
    Harmful, Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 390-401, 1988.

    [LIN93] Lin, S. and D. Costello, Error Control Coding: Fundamentals
    and Applications, Prentice Hall, 1993.

    [LUD99a] Ludwig, R., Rathonyi, B., Konrad, A., Oden, K., and A.
    Joseph, Multi-Layer Tracing of TCP over a Reliable Wireless Link,
    ACM SIGMETRICS, pp. 144-154, 1999.

    [LUD99b] Ludwig, R., Konrad, A., Joseph, A. and R. H. Katz,
    Optimizing the End-to-End Performance of Reliable Flows over
    Wireless Links, ACM MobiCOM, 1999.

    [MEY99] M. Meyer, TCP Performance over GPRS, IEEE WCNC, 1999.



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    [PAR00] Parsa, C. and J. J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves, Improving TCP
    Performance over Wireless Networks at the Link Layer, Mobile
    Networks and Applications, (1)5, pp. 57-71, 2000.

    [RFC768] J. Postel, User Datagram Protocol, 1980.

    [RFC791] J. Postel, Internet Protocol, RFC 791, 1981.

    [RFC793] J. Postel, Transmission Control Protocol, RFC 793, 1981.

    [RFC1122] R. Braden et al., Requirements for Internet Hosts --
    Communication Layers, RFC 1122, 1989.

    [RFC1191] Mogul, J. and S. Deering, Path MTU Discovery, RFC 1191,
    1990.

    [RFC1323] Jacobson, V. and R. Braden, TCP Extensions for High
    Performance, RFC 1323, 1992.

    [RFC1350] K. Solins, The TFTP Protocol (Revision 2), RFC 1350, 1992.

    [RFC1435] S. Knowles, IESG Advice from Experience with Path MTU
    Discovery, RFC 1435, 1993.

    [RFC1827] R. Atkinson, IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP),
    RFC 1827, 1995.

    [RFC1981] McCann, J., Deering, S., and J. Mogul, Path MTU Discovery
    for IP version 6, RFC 1981, 1996.

    [RFC2475] Blake, S., Black, D., M. Carlson et al., An Architecture
    for Differentiated Services, RFC 2475, 1998.

    [RFC2488] Allman, M., Glover, D. and L. Sanchez, Enhancing TCP Over
    Satellite Channels using Standard Mechanisms, RFC 2488, 1999.

    [RFC2581] Allman, M., Paxson, V. and W. Stevens, TCP Congestion
    Control, RFC 2581, 1999.

    [RFC2757] Dawkins, S., Kojo, M., Magret V. and N. Vaidya, Long Thin
    Networks, RFC 2757, 2000.

    [RFC2760] Allman, M., Dawkins, S., Glover, D., J. Griner et al.,
    Ongoing TCP Research Related to Satellites, RFC 2760, 1999.

    [RFC2960] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Morneault, K., Sharp, C.,
    Schwarzbauer, H., Taylor, T., Rytina, I., Kalla, M., Zhang, L. and
    V. Paxson, Stream Control Transmission Protocol, RFC 2960, 2000.

    [RFC3022] Srisuresh, P., and K. Egevang, Traditional IP Network
    Address Translator (Traditional NAT), RFC 3022, 2001.

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    [RFC3135] Border, J., Kojo, M., Griner, J., Montenegro, G. and Z.
    Shelby, Performance Enhancing Proxies Intended to Mitigate Link-
    Related Degradations, RFC 3135, 2001.

    [RFC3155] Dawkins, S., Montenegro, G., Kojo, M., Magret, V. and N.
    Vaidya, End-to-end Performance Implications of Links with Errors,
    BCP 50, August 2001.

    [SALT81] Saltzer, J. H., Reed, D. P. and D. Clark, End-to-End
    Arguments in System Design, Second International Conference on
    Distributed Computing Systems, pp. 509-512, 1981.  Published with
    minor changes in ACM Transactions in Computer Systems (2)4,
    pp. 277-288, 1984.

    [SAM96] Samaraweera, N. and G. Fairhurst, Robust Data Link Protocols
    for Connection-less Service over Satellite Links, International
    Journal of Satellite Communications, 14(5), pp. 427-437, 1996.

    [SAM98] Samaraweera, N. and G. Fairhurst, Reinforcement of TCP/IP
    Error Recovery for Wireless Communications, ACM CCR, 28(2), pp. 30-
    38, 1998.

    [STE94] W. R. Stevens, TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, Addison-Wesley,
    1994.

    [STONE00] Stone, J., and C. Partridge, When the CRC and TCP Checksum
    Disagree, Proceedings of SIGCOMM 2000, ACM Computer Communications
    Review pp. 309-321, September 2000.

    [WARD95] C. Ward et al., A Data Link Control Protocol for LEO
    Satellite Networks Providing a Reliable Datagram Service, IEEE/ACM
    Transactions on Networking, 3(1), 1995.



 AUTHORS' ADDRESSES

    Gorry Fairhurst (gorry@erg.abdn.ac.uk)
    http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/users/gorry/

    Department of Engineering, University of Aberdeen,
    Aberdeen AB24 3UE, United Kingdom.


    Lloyd Wood (lwood@cisco.com)
    http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/

    Cisco Systems UK Ltd, 4 The Square, Stockley Park,
    Uxbridge UB11 1BY, United Kingdom.


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 FULL COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

    Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002).
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