this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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If you're using TCP and losing packets you should be panicking though, because something is very wrong...
True, but TCP will just resend them, you won’t lose anything but some latency. Meaning it’s something to look into, but not something to panic about.
Do you ever find yourself confidently explaining things after misunderstanding yourself?
Edit: I'm fine with being downvoted for being a dick, but seriously, people missing the point and then going on to explain the very thing that someone else just finished saying is fucking obnoxious. OP was saying, "if, despite TCP's delivery control, you are still missing packets, something is really wrong".
I get what you're both saying, but it's technically wrong. TCP exposes segments and those are guaranteed to be transmitted. That may however require the retransmission of several IP packets.
So losing a packet is fine, while losing a segment is worth worrying about.
Anyway I can't speak for OP if they genuinely misunderstood because of terminology or just got wooshed. But they're technically right, even if by accident.
You can lose packets. Just cut the cable, but the other side will notice that the transmission is incomplete.
Shouldn't the engineer be a bit more worried if the cable's been cut?
If UDP drops packets it's probably nothing. If TCP drops packets it's because something's actually wrong.