Micro Transport Protocol

Micro Transport Protocol

Micro Transport Protocol or TP is a protocol used by the Torrent implementation of the bittorrent protocol to communicate across the internet. It was devised to automatically slow down[1] the rate at which packets of data are transmitted between users of peer-to-peer file sharing torrents when it interferes with other applications. For example, the protocol should automatically allow the sharing of an ADSL line between a BitTorrent application and a web browser. As it is difficult for some people to type the Greek letter mu, TP is often written uTP.

Development
TP was developed within BitTorrent, Inc. with no input from either the networking or BitTorrent communities[2] It was first introduced in the Torrent 1.8.x beta branches, and publicized in the alpha builds of Torrent 1.9.[3] [4] No Free Software fully implements TP at this time (although libtorrent currently has an incomplete implementation of TP in a development branch.[5] [6] [7] ). Some in the Free Software community believe that the goals of TP are better met by adding TP's congestion control to TCP rather than by designing an application-specific framing scheme.[8] Others note that TCP, for all its advantages, is very slow to expose new functionality to applications due to its tight integration with operating system kernels.

Operation
TP consists of two parts: a framing scheme, and a congestion control algorithm that is less aggressive than that of TCP.

TP framing
TP stores data within UDP datagrams using its own framing scheme. The framing scheme has functionality roughly equivalent to that of TCP (with timestamps and SACK), but realised in a completely incompatible manner. The TP framing scheme is believed by some to be far from optimal.[9]

TP congestion control
The congestion control algorithm used by TP, known as Ledbat, aims to decrease the latency caused by applications using the protocol while maximizing bandwidth when latency is not excessive.[10] [11] Additionally, information from the TP congestion controller can be used to choose the transfer rate of TCP connections.[12] Ledbat has been described in an Internet-Draft,[13] but the details of the TP implementation are different from those of the draft.[14]

Micro Transport Protocol

See also
Torrent BitTorrent TCP congestion avoidance algorithm

External links
BitTorrent Enhancement Proposal 29 [15] - Torrent transport protocol TCP-LP [16]

References
[1] http:/ / forum. bittorrent. org/ viewtopic. php?pid=762#p762 [2] http:/ / forum. utorrent. com/ viewtopic. php?id=59150 [3] Torrent's switch to UDP and why the sky isn't falling (http:/ / arstechnica. com/ news. ars/ post/ 20081201-utorrents-switch-to-udp-and-why-the-sky-isnt-falling. html) [4] uTorrent shifts towards UDP to make it work better (http:/ / www. thinkbroadband. com/ news/ 3807-utorrent-shifts-towards-udp-to-make-it-work-better. html) [5] https:/ / libtorrent. svn. sourceforge. net/ svnroot/ libtorrent/ branches/ libtorrent_utp/ [6] http:/ / libtorrent. svn. sourceforge. net/ viewvc/ libtorrent/ branches/ libtorrent_utp/ [7] http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ libtorrent/ issues/ detail?id=6 [8] http:/ / forum. bittorrent. org/ viewtopic. php?pid=764#p764 [9] http:/ / forum. bittorrent. org/ viewtopic. php?id=131 [10] Technical information about UDP (http:/ / searchnetworking. techtarget. com. au/ articles/ 27957-Torrents-of-Disruption-on-the-Way-) [11] http:/ / forum. bittorrent. org/ viewtopic. php?pid=762#p762 [12] "Post by developer "Greg Hazel" in thread "Torrent 1.9 alpha"" (http:/ / forum. utorrent. com/ viewtopic. php?pid=377209#p377209). 2008-11-26. . Retrieved 2009-03-08. [13] "Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT)" (http:/ / tools. ietf. org/ id/ draft-shalunov-ledbat-congestion-00. txt). 2009-03-04. . Retrieved 2009-12-01. [14] http:/ / forum. bittorrent. org/ viewtopic. php?pid=753#p753 [15] http:/ / bittorrent. org/ beps/ bep_0029. html [16] http:/ / www. ece. rice. edu/ networks/ TCP-LP/

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

Micro Transport Protocol Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=359489970 Contributors: Arbitrarynick, Capricorn42, Charonn0, DataWraith, DonChris, Eyreland, Gopal81, H999342, Jec, Kinema, MBisanz, Makewa, Malcolma, Nageh, NeilN, Nneonneo, Ondra.pelech, Osndok, Payo, Phatom87, Plisk, Schuhpuppe, Sublime98, Tide rolls, Varnav, Woohookitty, 22 anonymous edits

License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported http:/ / creativecommons. org/ licenses/ by-sa/ 3. 0/