v11i020: Idle demon

[Michael van Elst]

In article <2868 at wyse.wyse.com> bob at wyse.UUCP (Bob McGowen x4312 dept208) writes:
>If my understanding of "sliding window" protocols is correct, it IS possible
>for a download to never (or seldom) have a response.  The basic idea is that
>if an error has not occured, why spend the overhead to ack the packet.  So
>a stream of packets flows until an error.  If no problems, then no input, so
>line is idle and off we go in the middle of the transfer somewhere.

No, even with a "sliding window" protocol, acknoledgements are sent.
The main difference is that you don't wait for an ack to continue
transmission but wait if a specified number (window size) of acks
is missing.


-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve at mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."