chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) (09/17/84)
...
TCP will send many small packets for interactive traffic, even
over slow links; there is no fix for the small packet problem.
(Again, a design problem which will choke long-haul nets.)
The problem is that the tcp connection is hooked in at the Unix system
call interface level, and the I/O calls are being made one byte at a
time. ``tar'' is a good (bad?) example; try a ``tar tv'' over the net.
Yucko.
The problem can be ``solved'' by fixing the offending programs to
properly buffer their output (one of the first things I did to uucp was
to set line-buffering on stderr). Changing stdio would be a good idea
but would involve quite a bit of work....
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci (301) 454-7690
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet: chris@umcp-cs ARPA: chris@maryland