Acknowledgement (data networks)
Encyclopedia
In data networking, an acknowledgment is a signal
passed between communicating processes
or computer
s to signify acknowledgment, or receipt of response, as part of a communications protocol. For instance, ACK packets are used in the Transmission Control Protocol
to acknowledge the receipt of SYN packets when establishing a connection, data packets while a connection is being used, and FIN packets when terminating a connection.
The acknowledgement function is used in the automatic repeat-request (ARQ) function. Acknowledgement frames are numbered in coordination with the frames that have been received, and then sent to the transmitter. This allows the transmitter to remain within the window size of the receiver's buffers, and to become aware of any missed frames.
Signal (computing)
A signal is a limited form of inter-process communication used in Unix, Unix-like, and other POSIX-compliant operating systems. Essentially it is an asynchronous notification sent to a process in order to notify it of an event that occurred. When a signal is sent to a process, the operating system...
passed between communicating processes
Process (computing)
In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. It contains the program code and its current activity. Depending on the operating system , a process may be made up of multiple threads of execution that execute instructions concurrently.A computer program is a...
or computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s to signify acknowledgment, or receipt of response, as part of a communications protocol. For instance, ACK packets are used in the Transmission Control Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
to acknowledge the receipt of SYN packets when establishing a connection, data packets while a connection is being used, and FIN packets when terminating a connection.
The acknowledgement function is used in the automatic repeat-request (ARQ) function. Acknowledgement frames are numbered in coordination with the frames that have been received, and then sent to the transmitter. This allows the transmitter to remain within the window size of the receiver's buffers, and to become aware of any missed frames.