On 22/01/2011, at 8:04 AM, Ray Jones wrote: > On 01/21/2011 11:59 AM, Phillip Hutchings wrote: >> On 22/01/2011, at 7:55 AM, Dennis Nezic wrote: >> >>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:51:35 -0700, Ray Jones wrote: >>>> If I understand correctly.... >>>> >>>> UDP has no such thing as flow control. So even though your machine >>>> reads only X packets per second, the sending machine is still sending >>>> and you're still receiving. If the packets build up too far your >>>> machine will drop them, but you've already used the bandwidth to get >>>> them there before they were dropped! >>> I agree it's a terrible waste -- but, I say, tough luck. Surely the >>> senders will throttle back when they start seeing some of their packets >>> not being acknowledged. (Like I said, we should avoid this situation as >>> much as possible, but ultimately the user has to be in control. The >>> network, selfish as this might sound, comes second!) >> NO! We're using UDP - UDP packets have no acknowledgment. TCP would behave >> like you describe, but UDP senders have no way of knowing that there's a >> problem. > > Which brings this non-techies to the obvious (to me) question: So why are we > using UDP instead of TCP?
Because UDP is easier to get through firewalls. TCP has state, so the firewall has to know you want to receive packets on a port, and it can identify the difference between an outgoing an incoming connection. With a network setup like this A |firewall| <----> C <-----> |firewall| B if A wants to talk to B, B needs to configure their firewall to allow it. They can both talk via C, but C always has to forward packets, if A send a packet to B the firewall would simply block it. However, UDP doesn't have state, a firewall can't identify connections. This means if you have this setup: A || <----> C <----> || B A can get a message to B via C, then at an agreed time both A and B send a packet to each other. Since the firewall can only identify packets, not connections, A's firewall consider's B's packet a response, and vice versa. Then A and B have a communication channel independent of C. This is how the STUN system works. It's advantageous for any system to use UDP as it removes many firewall issues and lowers the support load. There are other reasons to use UDP, such as real time protocols - if you drop a packet in a voice conversation a delay is more harmful than an audio glitch. _______________________________________________ Support mailing list Support@freenetproject.org http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support Or mailto:support-requ...@freenetproject.org?subject=unsubscribe
