CC_HTCP(4)

✨ NAME ✨

cc_htcp — H-TCP Congestion Control Algorithm. That’s the whole name, bestie 💅. You’re on the cc_htcp(4) page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual, and we’re about to make congestion control make sense.

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So the H-TCP congestion control algorithm was designed to provide increased throughput in fast and long-distance networks. It tries to maintain fairness when it’s competing with legacy NewReno TCP in lower speed scenarios where NewReno is able to operate adequately. No cap.

The congestion window is increased as a function of the time elapsed since the last congestion event. The window increase algorithm operates like NewReno for the first second after a congestion event, and then switches to a high-speed mode based on a quadratic increase function. It’s giving “chill first, then go fast” energy 😭🔥.

The implementation was done in a clean-room fashion, and is based on the Internet Draft and other documents referenced in the “SEE ALSO” section below. Respect the receipts, fr fr 🫶.

🎀 MIB Variables 🎀

The algorithm exposes the following tunable variables in the net.inet.tcp.cc.htcp branch of the sysctl(3) MIB:

• adaptive_backoff — Controls use of the adaptive backoff algorithm, which is designed to keep network queues non-empty during congestion recovery episodes. Default is 0 (disabled).
• rtt_scaling — Controls use of the RTT scaling algorithm, which is designed to make congestion window increase during congestion avoidance mode invariant with respect to RTT. Default is 0 (disabled).

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• cc_cdg(4), cc_chd(4), cc_cubic(4), cc_dctcp(4), cc_hd(4), cc_newreno(4), cc_vegas(4), mod_cc(4), tcp(4), mod_cc(9)
• D. Leith and R. Shorten, H-TCP: TCP Congestion Control for High Bandwidth-Delay Product Paths, https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-leith-tcp-htcp-06.txt.
• D. Leith, R. Shorten, and T. Yee, “H-TCP: A framework for congestion control in high-speed and long-distance networks”, Proc. PFLDnet, 2005.
• G. Armitage, L. Stewart, M. Welzl, and J. Healy, “An independent H-TCP implementation under FreeBSD 7.0: description and observed behaviour”, SIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev., 3, 38, 27-38, July 2008.

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💖 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 💖

Development and testing of this software were made possible in part by grants from the FreeBSD Foundation and Cisco University Research Program Fund at Community Foundation Silicon Valley. Iconic support, honestly 👑.

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

The cc_htcp congestion control module first appeared in FreeBSD 9.0.

The module was first released in 2007 by James Healy and Lawrence Stewart whilst working on the NewTCP research project at Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures, Melbourne, Australia, which was made possible in part by a grant from the Cisco University Research Program Fund at Community Foundation Silicon Valley. More details are available at:

http://caia.swin.edu.au/urp/newtcp/

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

• The cc_htcp congestion control module was written by James Healy <jimmy@deefa.com> and Lawrence Stewart <lstewart@FreeBSD.org>.
• This manual page was written by Lawrence Stewart <lstewart@FreeBSD.org> and David Hayes <david.hayes@ieee.org>.

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xoxo, Debian — May 13, 2021 — CC_HTCP(4) 💅💖