PC Help Jansant - A Guide to the TCP/IP Protocol Suite

Main Menu

Home Page
Computer Guides
Computer Dictionary
Network Setup
Tips and Tricks
Internet Guide
Freeware/Shareware
PC Upgrade Guide
PC Maintenance
Support Forum
HTML Guide

Common TCP/IP Protocols

TCP - Transmission Control Protocol, provides a reliable connection-based delivery method, guaranteeing successful delivery of packets. Using a checksum, it ensures data is sequenced correctly. If a data packet is lost or corrupted during transmission TCP resends the data. An example of when TCP is used would be e-mail, which requires reliable delivery. The receiving computer sends an acknowledgment (ack) of successful receipt of data packets.
UDP - User datagram Protocol, is a connectionless datagram service offering an unreliable best effort delivery service.
HTTP and HTTPS - Hypertext Transfer Protocol and Hypertext Transfer Protocol secure, is the protocol used when retrieving web documents with a browser. HTTPS allows information sent and recieved from the web server to be encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). HTTPS tends to only be used when sending credit card information and other private information. HTTPS ensures your data can not be intercepted and read.
NTP - Network Time Protocol synchronises clocks of computers on a network or the Internet.
NNTP - Network News Transfer Protocol sends and retrieves news articles on the Internet in newsgroups. Using TCP to send and receive, it allows submission and retrieval only of articles not already sent or received.
ICMP - Internet Control Message Protocol is used by systems on a network to share status and error information. The 2 most common uses of ICMP are PING and TRACERT.
ARP - Address Resolution Protocol allows IP address to Physical address resolution (MAC address) for IP packets.
SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, used to send and receive mail over the internet. When computers were constantly connected to the network SMTP could be used to send mail with great assurance of delivery. Generally its now used to send mail to a pop server where it awaits download by the recipient.
POP - Post Office Protocol 3, used to over come the problem when using SMTP servers for computers that are not constantly connected to the internet or network. The recipient uses the pop server to collect their mail when they connect to the internet or network.
IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol 4, similar to POP, allows clients to retrieve mail from a server to store in a local data file.
SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol allows remote management of virtually any device over a network connection. The device can be a NIC, a program, service, or even a standalone device such as a router.
FTP - File Transfer Protocol is used to copy files from one computer to another. Used widely by webmasters to copy files to their web-sites.
IP - Internet Protocol, All data sent using the TCP/IP suite must use it. A connectionless delivery system that makes a best effort attempt to deliver data. IP does use a checksum to confirm the integrity of the header, but confirmation of the integrity of the data contained is done using higher-level protocols.

Web-Site Administrators Local Time

feedback - terms of use - contact - sitemap - advertise - webmasters