arrive, but the client must allocate an ephemeral port before sending the first SYN to the server. This port remains allocated during the whole conversation and effectively limits the number of outgoing connections from each of the client's IP addresses. If an application fails to properly close unrequired connections, a client can run out of resources and become unable to establish new TCP connections, even from other applications. Both endpoints must also allocate space for unacknowledged packets and received (but unread) data. Data transfer The Transmission Control Protocol differs in several key features compared to the User Datagram Protocol: Ordered data transfer: the destination host rearranges segments according to a sequence number Retransmission of lost packets: any cumulative stream not acknowledged is retransmitted Error-free data transfer: corrupted packets are treated as lost and are retransmitted Flow control: limits the rate a sender transfers data to guarantee reliable delivery. The receiver continually hints the sender on how much data can be received. When the receiving host's buffer fills, the next acknowledgment suspends the transfer and allows the data in the buffer to be processed. Congestion control: lost packets (presumed due to congestion) trigger a reduction in data delivery rate Reliable transmission TCP uses a sequence number to identify each byte of data. The sequence number identifies the order of the bytes sent from each computer so that the data can be reconstructed in order, regardless of any out-of-order delivery that may occur. The sequence number of the first byte is chosen by the transmitter for the first packet, which is flagged SYN. This number can be arbitrary, and should, in fact, be unpredictable to defend against TCP sequence prediction attacks. Acknowledgements (ACKs) are sent with a sequence number by the receiver of data to tell the sender that data has been received to the specified byte. ACKs do not imply that the data has been delivered to the application, they merely signify that it is now the receiver's responsibility to deliver the data. Reliability is achieved by the sender detecting lost data and retransmitting it. TCP uses two primary techniques to identify loss. Retransmission timeout (RTO) and duplicate cumulative acknowledgements (DupAcks). Dupack-based retransmission If a single segment (say segment number 100) in a stream is lost, then the receiver cannot acknowledge packets above that segment number (100) because it uses cumulative ACKs. Hence the receiver acknowledges packet 99 again on the