1.

UDP Client Processes

As with TCP, client/server communication is initiated by a client application that requests data from a
server process. The UDP client process randomly selects a port number from the range of dynamic port
numbers and uses this as the source port for the conversation. The destination port is usually the well-
known or registered port number assigned to the server process.

Randomized source port numbers also help with security. If there is a predictable pattern for
destination port selection, an intruder can more easily simulate access to a client by attempting to
connect to the port number most likely to be open.

Because there is no session to be created with UDP, as soon as the data is ready to be sent and
the ports identified, UDP can form the datagrams and pass them to the network layer to be
addressed and sent on the network.

After a client has selected the source and destination ports, the same pair of ports is used in the header
of all datagrams used in the transaction. For the data returning to the client from the server, the source
and destination port numbers in the datagram header are reversed.

2. TCP uses the 3-way handshake. UDP does not use this feature. The 3-way handshake
ensures there is connectivity between the source and destination devices before
transmission occurs.
3. Port numbers 0-1023 – Well known ports. These are allocated to server services by the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). e.g Web servers normally use port 80 and SMTP servers
use port 25 (see diagram above).
4. SOCKET (end to end)
ex. Imagine sitting on your PC at home, and you have two browser windows open.
One looking at the Google website, and the other at the Yahoo website.
The connection to Google would be:
Your PC – IP1+port 60200 ——– Google IP2 +port 80 (standard port)
The combination IP1+60200 = the socket on the client computer and IP2 + port 80 = destination
socket on the Google server.
The connection to Yahoo would be:
your PC – IP1+port 60401 ——–Yahoo IP3 +port 80 (standard port)
The combination IP1+60401 = the socket on the client computer and IP3 + port 80 = destination
socket on the Yahoo server.

9.

Tracking Individual Conversations

A host may have multiple applications that are communicating across the network simultaneously. Each
of these applications communicates with one or more applications on one or more remote hosts. It is the
responsibility of the transport layer to maintain and track these multiple
conversations.

Segmenting Data and Reassembling Segments

Data must be prepared to be sent across the media in manageable pieces. Most networks have a
limitation on the amount of data that can be included in a single packet. Transport layer protocols have
services that segment the application data into blocks of data that are an appropriate size (Figure 2). This
service includes the encapsulation required on each piece of data. A header, used for reassembly, is
added to each block of data. This header is used to track the data stream.

At the destination, the transport

layer must be able to reconstruct the pieces of data
into a complete data stream that is useful to the application layer. The protocols
at the transport layer describe how the transport layer header information is used
to reassemble the data pieces into streams to be passed to the application layer.

Identifying the Applications

There may be many applications or services running on each host in the network. To pass data streams
to the proper applications, the transport layer must identify the target application. To
accomplish this, the transport layer assigns each application an identifier. This
identifier is called a port number. Each software process that needs to access the network is
assigned a port number unique in that host. The transport layer uses ports to identify the application or
service.