Chapter 9. User Datagram Protocol

In this chapter:

Introduction to UDP

Uses for UDP

The UDP Message

The UDP Header

UDP Ports

The UDP Pseudo Header

Summary

There are two protocols at the Transport Layer that TCP/IP applications typically use for transporting data: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). This chapter describes the characteristics of UDP and the fields in the UDP header.

Introduction to UDP

UDP, defined in RFC 768, has the following characteristics:

  • Connectionless. Nodes send UDP messages, consisting of a UDP header and a message, without having to negotiate a connection between communicating peers.

  • Unreliable. Nodes send UDP messages as datagrams without sequencing or acknowledgment. The Application Layer protocol ...

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