Long Lived TCP Flows

[statty01]

TCP long lived flows have unlimited data to send"
Does this mean that the TCP source will keep sending as much data as it possibly can for the transmission link? Once congestion is occuring TCP congestion mechanism will come into play, thereby reducing its window size etc. ? Is this correct or do i have the incorrect understanding of what a TCP long lived flow is?

Thanks!

 

[burtsbees]

TCP will always initiate the congestion avoidance mechanism and slow-start if buffers get over-filled, bottlenecks, or output capacity of a router in the chain is smaller that the sum of its inputs. So, you are correct in your assumption. The long-lived flow can be confused with UDP, but being TCP, it is reliable, and lost segments will be retransmitted and flow control will always be incorporated. In fact, Only long-lasting flows are the object of congestion control---there is no congestion control mechanism for short-lived flows. So, with slow-start and then congestion control/flow control, the data can be sent as long as congestion does not occur for whatever reason, for example FTP.

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tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!