tcp(7) - Linux man page

Name
tcp - TCP protocol

Synopsis
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <netinet/tcp.h>
tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

Description
This is an implementation of the TCP protocol defined in RFC 793, RFC
1122 and RFC 2001 with the NewReno and SACK extensions. It provides
a reliable, stream-oriented, full-duplex connection between two sockets
on top of ip(7), for both v4 and v6 versions. TCP guarantees that the data
arrives in order and retransmits lost packets. It generates and checks a
per-packet checksum to catch transmission errors. TCP does not
preserve record boundaries.
A newly created TCP socket has no remote or local address and is not
fully specified. To create an outgoing TCP connection use connect(2) to
establish a connection to another TCP socket. To receive new incoming
connections, firstbind(2) the socket to a local address and port and then
call listen(2) to put the socket into the listening state. After that a new
socket for each incoming connection can be accepted using accept(2). A
socket which has had accept(2) orconnect(2) successfully called on it is
fully specified and may transmit data. Data cannot be transmitted on
listening or not yet connected sockets.
Linux supports RFC 1323 TCP high performance extensions. These
include Protection Against Wrapped Sequence Numbers (PAWS),
Window Scaling and Timestamps. Window scaling allows the use of large
(> 64K) TCP windows in order to support links with high latency or
bandwidth. To make use of them, the send and receive buffer sizes must
be increased. They can be set globally with
the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_wmem and /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem files,

or on individual sockets by using

the SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF socket options with
the setsockopt(2) call.
The maximum sizes for socket buffers declared via
the SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF mechanisms are limited by the
values in
the /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max and /proc/sys/net/core/wmem_max files
. Note that TCP actually allocates twice the size of the buffer requested in
the setsockopt(2) call, and so a succeeding getsockopt(2) call will not
return the same size of buffer as requested in the setsockopt(2) call. TCP
uses the extra space for administrative purposes and internal kernel
structures, and the /proc file values reflect the larger sizes compared to
the actual TCP windows. On individual connections, the socket buffer size
must be set prior to the listen(2) or connect(2) calls in order to have it take
effect. Seesocket(7) for more information.
TCP supports urgent data. Urgent data is used to signal the receiver that
some important message is part of the data stream and that it should be
processed as soon as possible. To send urgent data specify
the MSG_OOB option to send(2). When urgent data is received, the
kernel sends a SIGURG signal to the process or process group that has
been set as the socket "owner" using
the SIOCSPGRP or FIOSETOWN ioctls (or the POSIX.1-2001specified fcntl(2) F_SETOWNoperation). When
the SO_OOBINLINE socket option is enabled, urgent data is put into the
normal data stream (a program can test for its location using
the SIOCATMARK ioctl described below), otherwise it can be only
received when theMSG_OOB flag is set for recv(2) or recvmsg(2).
Linux 2.4 introduced a number of changes for improved throughput and
scaling, as well as enhanced functionality. Some of these features include
support for zero-copy sendfile(2), Explicit Congestion Notification, new
management of TIME_WAIT sockets, keep-alive socket options and
support for Duplicate SACK extensions.
Address formats
TCP is built on top of IP (see ip(7)). The address formats defined
by ip(7) apply to TCP. TCP only supports point-to-point communication;
broadcasting and multicasting are not supported.

/proc interfaces
System-wide TCP parameter settings can be accessed by files in the
directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/. In addition, most IP /procinterfaces also
apply to TCP; see ip(7). Variables described as Boolean take an integer
value, with a nonzero value ("true") meaning that the corresponding
option is enabled, and a zero value ("false") meaning that the option is
disabled.
tcp_abc (Integer; default: 0; since Linux 2.6.15)
Control the Appropriate Byte Count (ABC), defined in RFC 3465.
ABC is a way of increasing the congestion window (cwnd) more
slowly in response to partial acknowledgments. Possible values
are:
0
increase cwnd once per acknowledgment (no ABC)
1
increase cwnd once per acknowledgment of full sized segment
2
allow increase cwnd by two if acknowledgment is of two segments
to compensate for delayed acknowledgments.
tcp_abort_on_overflow (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.4)
Enable resetting connections if the listening service is too slow and
unable to keep up and accept them. It means that if overflow
occurred due to a burst, the connection will recover. Enable this
option only if you are really sure that the listening daemon cannot
be tuned to accept connections faster. Enabling this option can
harm the clients of your server.
tcp_adv_win_scale (integer; default: 2; since Linux 2.4)
Count buffering overhead as bytes/2^tcp_adv_win_scale,
if tcp_adv_win_scale is greater than 0; or bytes-bytes/2^(tcp_adv_win_scale), if tcp_adv_win_scale is less than or equal to
zero.
The socket receive buffer space is shared between the application
and kernel. TCP maintains part of the buffer as the TCP window,
this is the size of the receive window advertised to the other end.
The rest of the space is used as the "application" buffer, used to
isolate the network from scheduling and application latencies.
The tcp_adv_win_scaledefault value of 2 implies that the space
used for the application buffer is one fourth that of the total.

tcp_allowed_congestion_control (String; default: see text; since Linux

2.4.20)
Show/set the congestion control algorithm choices available to
unprivileged processes (see the description of
theTCP_CONGESTION socket option). The list is a subset of those
listed in tcp_available_congestion_control. The default value for this
list is "reno" plus the default setting of tcp_congestion_control.
tcp_available_congestion_control (String; read-only; since Linux 2.4.20)
Show a list of the congestion-control algorithms that are registered.
This list is a limiting set for the list
intcp_allowed_congestion_control. More congestion-control
algorithms may be available as modules, but not loaded.
tcp_app_win (integer; default: 31; since Linux 2.4)
This variable defines how many bytes of the TCP window are
reserved for buffering overhead.
A maximum of (window/2^tcp_app_win, mss) bytes in the window
are reserved for the application buffer. A value of 0 implies that no
amount is reserved.
tcp_base_mss (Integer; default: 512; since Linux 2.6.17)
The initial value of search_low to be used by the packetization layer
Path MTU discovery (MTU probing). If MTU probing is enabled, this
is the initial MSS used by the connection.
tcp_bic (Boolean; default: disabled; Linux 2.4.27/2.6.6 to 2.6.13)
Enable BIC TCP congestion control algorithm. BIC-TCP is a
sender-side only change that ensures a linear RTT fairness under
large windows while offering both scalability and bounded TCPfriendliness. The protocol combines two schemes called additive
increase and binary search increase. When the congestion window
is large, additive increase with a large increment ensures linear
RTT fairness as well as good scalability. Under small congestion
windows, binary search increase provides TCP friendliness.
tcp_bic_low_window (integer; default: 14; Linux 2.4.27/2.6.6 to 2.6.13)
Set the threshold window (in packets) where BIC TCP starts to
adjust the congestion window. Below this threshold BIC TCP
behaves the same as the default TCP Reno.
tcp_bic_fast_convergence (Boolean; default: enabled; Linux 2.4.27/2.6.6
to 2.6.13)
Force BIC TCP to more quickly respond to changes in congestion
window. Allows two flows sharing the same connection to converge
more rapidly.

tcp_congestion_control (String; default: see text; since Linux 2.4.13)

Set the default congestion-control algorithm to be used for new
connections. The algorithm "reno" is always available, but additional
choices may be available depending on kernel configuration. The
default value for this file is set as part of kernel configuration.
tcp_dma_copybreak (integer; default: 4096; since Linux 2.6.24)
Lower limit, in bytes, of the size of socket reads that will be
offloaded to a DMA copy engine, if one is present in the system and
the kernel was configured with the CONFIG_NET_DMA option.
tcp_dsack (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.4)
Enable RFC 2883 TCP Duplicate SACK support.
tcp_ecn (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.4)
Enable RFC 2884 Explicit Congestion Notification. When enabled,
connectivity to some destinations could be affected due to older,
misbehaving routers along the path causing connections to be
dropped.
tcp_fack (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.2)
Enable TCP Forward Acknowledgement support.
tcp_fin_timeout (integer; default: 60; since Linux 2.2)
This specifies how many seconds to wait for a final FIN packet
before the socket is forcibly closed. This is strictly a violation of the
TCP specification, but required to prevent denial-of-service attacks.
In Linux 2.2, the default value was 180.
tcp_frto (integer; default: 0; since Linux 2.4.21/2.6)
Enable F-RTO, an enhanced recovery algorithm for TCP
retransmission timeouts (RTOs). It is particularly beneficial in
wireless environments where packet loss is typically due to random
radio interference rather than intermediate router congestion. See
RFC 4138 for more details.
This file can have one of the following values:
0
Disabled.
1
The basic version F-RTO algorithm is enabled.
2
Enable SACK-enhanced F-RTO if flow uses SACK. The basic
version can be used also when SACK is in use though in that
case scenario(s) exists where F-RTO interacts badly with the
packet counting of the SACK-enabled TCP flow.
Before Linux 2.6.22, this parameter was a Boolean value,

supporting just values 0 and 1 above.

tcp_frto_response (integer; default: 0; since Linux 2.6.22)
When F-RTO has detected that a TCP retransmission timeout was
spurious (i.e, the timeout would have been avoided had TCP set a
longer retransmission timeout), TCP has several options concerning
what to do next. Possible values are:
0
Rate halving based; a smooth and conservative response, results in
halved congestion window (cwnd) and slow-start threshold
(ssthresh) after one RTT.
1
Very conservative response; not recommended because even
though being valid, it interacts poorly with the rest of Linux TCP;
halves cwnd and ssthresh immediately.
2
Aggressive response; undoes congestion-control measures that are
now known to be unnecessary (ignoring the possibility of a lost
retransmission that would require TCP to be more
cautious); cwnd and ssthresh are restored to the values prior to
timeout.
tcp_keepalive_intvl (integer; default: 75; since Linux 2.4)
The number of seconds between TCP keep-alive probes.
tcp_keepalive_probes (integer; default: 9; since Linux 2.2)
The maximum number of TCP keep-alive probes to send before
giving up and killing the connection if no response is obtained from
the other end.
tcp_keepalive_time (integer; default: 7200; since Linux 2.2)
The number of seconds a connection needs to be idle before TCP
begins sending out keep-alive probes. Keep-alives are only sent
when the SO_KEEPALIVE socket option is enabled. The default
value is 7200 seconds (2 hours). An idle connection is terminated
after approximately an additional 11 minutes (9 probes an interval of
75 seconds apart) when keep-alive is enabled.
Note that underlying connection tracking mechanisms and
application timeouts may be much shorter.
tcp_low_latency (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.4.21/2.6)
If enabled, the TCP stack makes decisions that prefer lower latency
as opposed to higher throughput. It this option is disabled, then
higher throughput is preferred. An example of an application where

this default should be changed would be a Beowulf compute

cluster.
tcp_max_orphans (integer; default: see below; since Linux 2.4)
The maximum number of orphaned (not attached to any user file
handle) TCP sockets allowed in the system. When this number is
exceeded, the orphaned connection is reset and a warning is
printed. This limit exists only to prevent simple denial-of-service
attacks. Lowering this limit is not recommended. Network conditions
might require you to increase the number of orphans allowed, but
note that each orphan can eat up to ~64K of unswappable memory.
The default initial value is set equal to the kernel parameter
NR_FILE. This initial default is adjusted depending on the memory
in the system.
tcp_max_syn_backlog (integer; default: see below; since Linux 2.2)
The maximum number of queued connection requests which have
still not received an acknowledgement from the connecting client. If
this number is exceeded, the kernel will begin dropping requests.
The default value of 256 is increased to 1024 when the memory
present in the system is adequate or greater (>= 128Mb), and
reduced to 128 for those systems with very low memory (<= 32Mb).
It is recommended that if this needs to be increased above 1024,
TCP_SYNQ_HSIZE in include/net/tcp.h be modified to keep
TCP_SYNQ_HSIZE*16<=tcp_max_syn_backlog, and the kernel be
recompiled.
tcp_max_tw_buckets (integer; default: see below; since Linux 2.4)
The maximum number of sockets in TIME_WAIT state allowed in
the system. This limit exists only to prevent simple denial-of-service
attacks. The default value of NR_FILE*2 is adjusted depending on
the memory in the system. If this number is exceeded, the socket is
closed and a warning is printed.
tcp_moderate_rcvbuf (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux
2.4.17/2.6.7)
If enabled, TCP performs receive buffer auto-tuning, attempting to
automatically size the buffer (no greater thantcp_rmem[2]) to match
the size required by the path for full throughput.
tcp_mem (since Linux 2.4)
This is a vector of 3 integers: [low, pressure, high]. These bounds,
measured in units of the system page size, are used by TCP to
track its memory usage. The defaults are calculated at boot time
from the amount of available memory. (TCP can only use low

memory for this, which is limited to around 900 megabytes on 32-bit

systems. 64-bit systems do not suffer this limitation.)
low
TCP doesn't regulate its memory allocation when the number of
pages it has allocated globally is below this number.
pressure
When the amount of memory allocated by TCP exceeds this
number of pages, TCP moderates its memory consumption. This
memory pressure state is exited once the number of pages
allocated falls below the low mark.
high
The maximum number of pages, globally, that TCP will allocate.
This value overrides any other limits imposed by the kernel.
tcp_mtu_probing (integer; default: 0; since Linux 2.6.17)
This parameter controls TCP Packetization-Layer Path MTU
Discovery. The following values may be assigned to the file:
0
Disabled
1
Disabled by default, enabled when an ICMP black hole detected
2
Always enabled, use initial MSS of tcp_base_mss.
tcp_no_metrics_save (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.6.6)
By default, TCP saves various connection metrics in the route
cache when the connection closes, so that connections established
in the near future can use these to set initial conditions. Usually, this
increases overall performance, but it may sometimes cause
performance degradation. If tcp_no_metrics_save is enabled, TCP
will not cache metrics on closing connections.
tcp_orphan_retries (integer; default: 8; since Linux 2.4)
The maximum number of attempts made to probe the other end of
a connection which has been closed by our end.
tcp_reordering (integer; default: 3; since Linux 2.4)
The maximum a packet can be reordered in a TCP packet stream
without TCP assuming packet loss and going into slow start. It is
not advisable to change this number. This is a packet reordering
detection metric designed to minimize unnecessary back off and
retransmits provoked by reordering of packets on a connection.
tcp_retrans_collapse (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.2)
Try to send full-sized packets during retransmit.
tcp_retries1 (integer; default: 3; since Linux 2.2)

The number of times TCP will attempt to retransmit a packet on an

established connection normally, without the extra effort of getting
the network layers involved. Once we exceed this number of
retransmits, we first have the network layer update the route if
possible before each new retransmit. The default is the RFC
specified minimum of 3.
tcp_retries2 (integer; default: 15; since Linux 2.2)
The maximum number of times a TCP packet is retransmitted in
established state before giving up. The default value is 15, which
corresponds to a duration of approximately between 13 to 30
minutes, depending on the retransmission timeout. The RFC 1122
specified minimum limit of 100 seconds is typically deemed too
short.
tcp_rfc1337 (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.2)
Enable TCP behavior conformant with RFC 1337. When disabled, if
a RST is received in TIME_WAIT state, we close the socket
immediately without waiting for the end of the TIME_WAIT period.
tcp_rmem (since Linux 2.4)
This is a vector of 3 integers: [min, default, max]. These parameters
are used by TCP to regulate receive buffer sizes. TCP dynamically
adjusts the size of the receive buffer from the defaults listed below,
in the range of these values, depending on memory available in the
system.
min
minimum size of the receive buffer used by each TCP socket. The
default value is the system page size. (On Linux 2.4, the default
value is 4K, lowered to PAGE_SIZE bytes in low-memory systems.)
This value is used to ensure that in memory pressure mode,
allocations below this size will still succeed. This is not used to
bound the size of the receive buffer declared
using SO_RCVBUF on a socket.
default
the default size of the receive buffer for a TCP socket. This value
overwrites the initial default buffer size from the generic
global net.core.rmem_default defined for all protocols. The default
value is 87380 bytes. (On Linux 2.4, this will be lowered to 43689 in
low-memory systems.) If larger receive buffer sizes are desired, this
value should be increased (to affect all sockets). To employ large
TCP windows, the net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling must be enabled
(default).
max

the maximum size of the receive buffer used by each TCP socket.
This value does not override the globalnet.core.rmem_max. This is
not used to limit the size of the receive buffer declared
using SO_RCVBUF on a socket. The default value is calculated
using the formula
max(87380, min(4MB, tcp_mem[1]*PAGE_SIZE/128))
(On Linux 2.4, the default is 87380*2 bytes, lowered to 87380 in
low-memory systems).
tcp_sack (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.2)
Enable RFC 2018 TCP Selective Acknowledgements.
tcp_slow_start_after_idle (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.6.18)
If enabled, provide RFC 2861 behavior and time out the congestion
window after an idle period. An idle period is defined as the current
RTO (retransmission timeout). If disabled, the congestion window
will not be timed out after an idle period.
tcp_stdurg (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.2)
If this option is enabled, then use the RFC 1122 interpretation of the
TCP urgent-pointer field. According to this interpretation, the urgent
pointer points to the last byte of urgent data. If this option is
disabled, then use the BSD-compatible interpretation of the urgent
pointer: the urgent pointer points to the first byte after the urgent
data. Enabling this option may lead to interoperability problems.
tcp_syn_retries (integer; default: 5; since Linux 2.2)
The maximum number of times initial SYNs for an active TCP
connection attempt will be retransmitted. This value should not be
higher than 255. The default value is 5, which corresponds to
approximately 180 seconds.
tcp_synack_retries (integer; default: 5; since Linux 2.2)
The maximum number of times a SYN/ACK segment for a passive
TCP connection will be retransmitted. This number should not be
higher than 255.
tcp_syncookies (Boolean; since Linux 2.2)
Enable TCP syncookies. The kernel must be compiled
with CONFIG_SYN_COOKIES. Send out syncookies when the syn
backlog queue of a socket overflows. The syncookies feature
attempts to protect a socket from a SYN flood attack. This should
be used as a last resort, if at all. This is a violation of the TCP
protocol, and conflicts with other areas of TCP such as TCP
extensions. It can cause problems for clients and relays. It is not

recommended as a tuning mechanism for heavily loaded servers to

help with overloaded or misconfigured conditions. For
recommended alternatives
see tcp_max_syn_backlog, tcp_synack_retries,
and tcp_abort_on_overflow.
tcp_timestamps (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.2)
Enable RFC 1323 TCP timestamps.
tcp_tso_win_divisor (integer; default: 3; since Linux 2.6.9)
This parameter controls what percentage of the congestion window
can be consumed by a single TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO)
frame. The setting of this parameter is a tradeoff between
burstiness and building larger TSO frames.
tcp_tw_recycle (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.4)
Enable fast recycling of TIME_WAIT sockets. Enabling this option is
not recommended since this causes problems when working with
NAT (Network Address Translation).
tcp_tw_reuse (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux 2.4.19/2.6)
Allow to reuse TIME_WAIT sockets for new connections when it is
safe from protocol viewpoint. It should not be changed without
advice/request of technical experts.
tcp_vegas_cong_avoid (Boolean; default: disabled; Linux 2.2 to 2.6.13)
Enable TCP Vegas congestion avoidance algorithm. TCP Vegas is
a sender-side only change to TCP that anticipates the onset of
congestion by estimating the bandwidth. TCP Vegas adjusts the
sending rate by modifying the congestion window. TCP Vegas
should provide less packet loss, but it is not as aggressive as TCP
Reno.
tcp_westwood (Boolean; default: disabled; Linux 2.4.26/2.6.3 to 2.6.13)
Enable TCP Westwood+ congestion control algorithm. TCP
Westwood+ is a sender-side only modification of the TCP Reno
protocol stack that optimizes the performance of TCP congestion
control. It is based on end-to-end bandwidth estimation to set
congestion window and slow start threshold after a congestion
episode. Using this estimation, TCP Westwood+ adaptively sets a
slow start threshold and a congestion window which takes into
account the bandwidth used at the time congestion is experienced.
TCP Westwood+ significantly increases fairness with respect to
TCP Reno in wired networks and throughput over wireless links.
tcp_window_scaling (Boolean; default: enabled; since Linux 2.2)
Enable RFC 1323 TCP window scaling. This feature allows the use
of a large window (> 64K) on a TCP connection, should the other

end support it. Normally, the 16 bit window length field in the TCP
header limits the window size to less than 64K bytes. If larger
windows are desired, applications can increase the size of their
socket buffers and the window scaling option will be employed.
If tcp_window_scaling is disabled, TCP will not negotiate the use of
window scaling with the other end during connection setup.
tcp_wmem (since Linux 2.4)
This is a vector of 3 integers: [min, default, max]. These parameters
are used by TCP to regulate send buffer sizes. TCP dynamically
adjusts the size of the send buffer from the default values listed
below, in the range of these values, depending on memory
available.
min
Minimum size of the send buffer used by each TCP socket. The
default value is the system page size. (On Linux 2.4, the default
value is 4K bytes.) This value is used to ensure that in memory
pressure mode, allocations below this size will still succeed. This is
not used to bound the size of the send buffer declared
using SO_SNDBUF on a socket.
default
The default size of the send buffer for a TCP socket. This value
overwrites the initial default buffer size from the generic
global /proc/sys/net/core/wmem_default defined for all protocols.
The default value is 16K bytes. If larger send buffer sizes are
desired, this value should be increased (to affect all sockets). To
employ large TCP windows,
the/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling must be set to a nonzero
value (default).
max
The maximum size of the send buffer used by each TCP socket.
This value does not override the value
in/proc/sys/net/core/wmem_max. This is not used to limit the size of
the send buffer declared using SO_SNDBUF on a socket. The
default value is calculated using the formula
max(65536, min(4MB, tcp_mem[1]*PAGE_SIZE/128))
(On Linux 2.4, the default value is 128K bytes, lowered 64K
depending on low-memory systems.)
tcp_workaround_signed_windows (Boolean; default: disabled; since Linux
2.6.26)

If enabled, assume that no receipt of a window-scaling option

means that the remote TCP is broken and treats the window as a
signed quantity. If disabled, assume that the remote TCP is not
broken even if we do not receive a window scaling option from it.
Socket options
To set or get a TCP socket option, call getsockopt(2) to read
or setsockopt(2) to write the option with the option level argument set
to IPPROTO_TCP. In addition, most IPPROTO_IP socket options are
valid on TCP sockets. For more information see ip(7).
TCP_CORK (since Linux 2.2)
If set, don't send out partial frames. All queued partial frames are
sent when the option is cleared again. This is useful for prepending
headers before calling sendfile(2), or for throughput optimization. As
currently implemented, there is a 200 millisecond ceiling on the time
for which output is corked by TCP_CORK. If this ceiling is reached,
then queued data is automatically transmitted. This option can be
combined with TCP_NODELAY only since Linux 2.5.71. This option
should not be used in code intended to be portable.
TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT (since Linux 2.4)
Allow a listener to be awakened only when data arrives on the
socket. Takes an integer value (seconds), this can bound the
maximum number of attempts TCP will make to complete the
connection. This option should not be used in code intended to be
portable.
TCP_INFO (since Linux 2.4)
Used to collect information about this socket. The kernel returns
a struct tcp_info as defined in the file/usr/include/linux/tcp.h. This
option should not be used in code intended to be portable.
TCP_KEEPCNT (since Linux 2.4)
The maximum number of keepalive probes TCP should send before
dropping the connection. This option should not be used in code
intended to be portable.
TCP_KEEPIDLE (since Linux 2.4)
The time (in seconds) the connection needs to remain idle before
TCP starts sending keepalive probes, if the socket
option SO_KEEPALIVE has been set on this socket. This option
should not be used in code intended to be portable.
TCP_KEEPINTVL (since Linux 2.4)
The time (in seconds) between individual keepalive probes. This
option should not be used in code intended to be portable.

TCP_LINGER2 (since Linux 2.4)

The lifetime of orphaned FIN_WAIT2 state sockets. This option can
be used to override the system-wide setting in the
file /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_fin_timeout for this socket. This is not to
be confused with the socket(7) level optionSO_LINGER. This option
should not be used in code intended to be portable.
TCP_MAXSEG
The maximum segment size for outgoing TCP packets. In Linux 2.2
and earlier, and in Linux 2.6.28 and later, if this option is set before
connection establishment, it also changes the MSS value
announced to the other end in the initial packet. Values greater than
the (eventual) interface MTU have no effect. TCP will also impose
its minimum and maximum bounds over the value provided.
TCP_NODELAY
If set, disable the Nagle algorithm. This means that segments are
always sent as soon as possible, even if there is only a small
amount of data. When not set, data is buffered until there is a
sufficient amount to send out, thereby avoiding the frequent sending
of small packets, which results in poor utilization of the network.
This option is overridden by TCP_CORK; however, setting this
option forces an explicit flush of pending output, even
if TCP_CORKis currently set.
TCP_QUICKACK (since Linux 2.4.4)
Enable quickack mode if set or disable quickack mode if cleared. In
quickack mode, acks are sent immediately, rather than delayed if
needed in accordance to normal TCP operation. This flag is not
permanent, it only enables a switch to or from quickack mode.
Subsequent operation of the TCP protocol will once again
enter/leave quickack mode depending on internal protocol
processing and factors such as delayed ack timeouts occurring and
data transfer. This option should not be used in code intended to be
portable.
TCP_SYNCNT (since Linux 2.4)
Set the number of SYN retransmits that TCP should send before
aborting the attempt to connect. It cannot exceed 255. This option
should not be used in code intended to be portable.
TCP_WINDOW_CLAMP (since Linux 2.4)
Bound the size of the advertised window to this value. The kernel
imposes a minimum size of SOCK_MIN_RCVBUF/2. This option
should not be used in code intended to be portable.

Sockets API
TCP provides limited support for out-of-band data, in the form of (a single
byte of) urgent data. In Linux this means if the other end sends newer
out-of-band data the older urgent data is inserted as normal data into the
stream (even whenSO_OOBINLINE is not set). This differs from BSDbased stacks.
Linux uses the BSD compatible interpretation of the urgent pointer field by
default. This violates RFC 1122, but is required for interoperability with
other stacks. It can be changed via /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_stdurg.
It is possible to peek at out-of-band data using
the recv(2) MSG_PEEK flag.
Since version 2.4, Linux supports the use of MSG_TRUNC in
the flags argument of recv(2) (and recvmsg(2)). This flag causes the
received bytes of data to be discarded, rather than passed back in a
caller-supplied buffer. Since Linux 2.4.4,MSG_PEEK also has this effect
when used in conjunction with MSG_OOB to receive out-of-band data.
Ioctls
The following ioctl(2) calls return information in value. The correct syntax
is:
int value;error = ioctl(tcp_socket, ioctl_type, &value);

ioctl_type is one of the following:

SIOCINQ
Returns the amount of queued unread data in the receive buffer.
The socket must not be in LISTEN state, otherwise an error
(EINVAL) is returned. SIOCINQ is defined in <linux/sockios.h>.
Alternatively, you can use the synonymousFIONREAD, defined
in <sys/ioctl.h>.
SIOCATMARK
Returns true (i.e., value is nonzero) if the inbound data stream is at
the urgent mark.
If the SO_OOBINLINE socket option is set,
and SIOCATMARK returns true, then the next read from the socket
will return the urgent data. If the SO_OOBINLINE socket option is

not set, and SIOCATMARK returns true, then the next read from
the socket will return the bytes following the urgent data (to actually
read the urgent data requires therecv(MSG_OOB) flag).
Note that a read never reads across the urgent mark. If an
application is informed of the presence of urgent data
viaselect(2) (using the exceptfds argument) or through delivery of
a SIGURG signal, then it can advance up to the mark using a loop
which repeatedly tests SIOCATMARK and performs a read
(requesting any number of bytes) as long asSIOCATMARK returns
false.
SIOCOUTQ
Returns the amount of unsent data in the socket send queue. The
socket must not be in LISTEN state, otherwise an error (EINVAL) is
returned. SIOCOUTQ is defined in <linux/sockios.h>. Alternatively,
you can use the synonymousTIOCOUTQ, defined in <sys/ioctl.h>.
Error handling
When a network error occurs, TCP tries to resend the packet. If it doesn't
succeed after some time, either ETIMEDOUT or the last received error on
this connection is reported.
Some applications require a quicker error notification. This can be
enabled with the IPPROTO_IP level IP_RECVERRsocket option. When
this option is enabled, all incoming errors are immediately passed to the
user program. Use this option with care -- it makes TCP less tolerant to
routing changes and other normal network conditions.

Errors
EAFNOTSUPPORT
Passed socket address type in sin_family was not AF_INET.
EPIPE
The other end closed the socket unexpectedly or a read is executed
on a shut down socket.
ETIMEDOUT
The other end didn't acknowledge retransmitted data after some
time.

Any errors defined for ip(7) or the generic socket layer may also be
returned for TCP.

Versions
Support for Explicit Congestion Notification, zero-copy sendfile(2),
reordering support and some SACK extensions (DSACK) were introduced
in 2.4. Support for forward acknowledgement (FACK), TIME_WAIT
recycling, and per-connection keepalive socket options were introduced in
2.3.

Bugs
Not all errors are documented.
IPv6 is not described.

See Also
accept(2), bind(2), connect(2), getsockopt(2), listen(2), recvmsg(2), sendfil
e(2), sendmsg(2), socket(2), ip(7),socket(7)

RFC 793 for the TCP specification.

RFC 1122 for the TCP requirements and a description of the Nagle
algorithm.
RFC 1323 for TCP timestamp and window scaling options.
RFC 1337 for a description of TIME_WAIT assassination hazards.
RFC 3168 for a description of Explicit Congestion Notification.
RFC 2581 for TCP congestion control algorithms.
RFC 2018 and RFC 2883 for SACK and extensions to SACK.