Maximum number of bytes that can be sent on a TCP connection

Posted by iamrohitbanga on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by iamrohitbanga
Published on 2010-05-11T18:20:10Z Indexed on 2010/05/11 18:24 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 215

Filed under:
|

I initially assumed that since tcp has a sequence number field of 32 bits and each byte sent on a tcp connection is labeled with a unique number, maximum number of bytes that can be sent on a tcp connection is about 2^32-1 or 2^32-2 (which?).

but now I feel that since TCP is a sliding window protocol, the wraparound of sequence numbers during the connection should not have an affect on the maximum number of bytes that can be sent over a tcp connection as long as the when wraparound occurs the old packet is no longer in the network (it is sent after 2*MSL).

What is the correct answer?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about tcp

Related posts about network-protocols