Trivial File Transfer Protocol - Protocol Walkthrough

Protocol Walkthrough

  1. The initiating host A sends an RRQ (read request) or WRQ (write request) packet to host S at port number 69, containing the filename and transfer mode.
  2. S replies with an ACK (acknowledgement) packet to WRQ and directly with a DATA packet to RRQ. Packet is sent from a freshly allocated ephemeral port, and all future packets to host S should be to this port.
  3. The source host sends numbered DATA packets to the destination host, all but the last containing a full-sized block of data (512 bytes). The destination host replies with numbered ACK packets for all DATA packets.
  4. The final DATA packet must contain less than a full-sized block of data to signal that it is the last. If the size of the transferred file is an exact multiple of the block-size, the source sends a final DATA packet containing 0 bytes of data.
  5. Receiver responds to each DATA with associated numbered ACK. Sender responds to the first received ACK of a block with DATA of the next block.
  6. If an ACK is not eventually received, a retransmit timer resends DATA packet.

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