An independent H-TCP implementation under FreeBSD 7.0: description and observed behaviour

Authors:
Grenville Armitage;Lawrence Stewart;Michael Welzl;James Healy
Affiliations:
Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia;Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia;University of Innsbruck, Austria;Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Venue:
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review
Year:
2008

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Abstract

A key requirement for IETF recognition of new TCP algorithms is having an independent, interoperable implementation. This paper describes our BSD-licensed implementation of H-TCP within FreeBSD 7.0, publicly available as a dynamically loadable kernel module. Based on our implementation experience we provide a summary description of the H-TCP algorithm to assist other groups build further interoperable implementations. Using data from our live testbed we demonstrate that our version exhibits expected H-TCP behavior, and describe a number of implementation-specific issues that influence H-TCP's dynamic behavior. Finally, we illustrate the actual collateral impact on path latency of using H-TCP instead of NewReno. In particular we illustrate how, compared to NewReno, H-TCP's cwnd growth strategy can cause faster fluctuations in queue sizes at, yet lower median latency through, congestion points. We believe these insights will prove valuable predictors of H-TCP's potential impact if deployed in consumer end-hosts in addition to specialist, high-performance network environments.