Re: Nagle Algorithm aggrivations

Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Sun, 17 Nov 1996 13:36:56 +0000 (GMT)


> How well does the Nagle Algorithm hold up over links that drop a lot
> of packets?

Nagle makes almost no difference.

> About five hops upstream, router was dropping 30% of packets. I use

Any link with 30% packet loss should be avoided. The TCP protocols themselves
dont work as well about 10% packet loss.

> Is there anyway to disable Nagle for a short period of time, or is it
> a compile and live with it option? Or a way to set TCP_NODELAY on
> certain sockets? I'm just throwing out terms I don't understand. :-)

If you want to disable nagle, eg because you are getting blocky data
there is a socket option. Enabling it on a congested link will just make
things worse.

Alan