[e2e] Why do we need TCP flow control (rwnd)?

[Detlef Bosau]

Lachlan Andrew wrote:
> On 26/06/2008, David P. Reed <dpreed at reed.com> wrote:
>   
>>  So the rwnd parameter is NOT actually measuring buffer pool size.   It is
>> actually a control loop that measures the endpoint application's ability to
>> do work.
>>     
>
> That is a good point.  However, most systems still  do  set   rwnd
> based on the buffer pool size (as, I believe, the RFCs still require).
>   

Isn't the buffer size a consequence of the application's ability to work?

When a WWW server does not fetch requests from the incoming queue, 
doesn't this decrease the free buffer sprace and thus rwnd?
> There has been work on using  rwnd  for congestion control instead of
> to signal the buffer pool size.  Mukhtar, Hanly and I did some
> <http://netlab.caltech.edu/lachlan/abstract/CLAMP-TMC07.pdf>, but were
> by no means the first.
>   

I know. And my question is still: How does a receiver know the path 
capacity? Doesn't you (either silently or explicitely) assume the "last 
mile" of a network to be the bottleneck?
> There has also been work on senders selectively ignoring  rwnd  when
> the buffer pool is small compared to the BDP, but the receiver is
> still keeping pace with the sending rate.  Sorry, I don't have refs
> for that.
>   

Hm. Isn't this exactly the point? How does a receiver keep pace with the 
sending rate (whatever this may be in a self clocking system) when the 
application does not? And wouldn't particulary a large BDP cause 
unnesserary delays in a proper reaction of the receiver when the 
application hangs?
(E.g. the search engines in Google are that much overloaded it would 
simply take several seconds to respond? And therefore, the search engine 
will intendedly throttle the number of requests?)


Detlef

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