Re: Increase tcp initial window

[Alistair Crooks <agc%pkgsrc.org@localhost>]

On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 09:40:07AM -0700, Erik Fair wrote:
> No, let's not.
> 
> John Hawkinson is correct.  Imagine this in the presence of routers
> which implement RED - it would not (and should not) win.  Absent
> RED, tragedy of the commons ensues (and, possibly, "congestion
> collapse" - google that and Nagle's RFC on gateways with infinite
> storage for enlightening historical perspective).

Why would that preclude making the initial congestion window a sysctl
tunable?

There are numerous white papers (including the original Google one
which started off the IETF effort) which show that having a larger
initial window is a win, and optimising for the lowest common
denominator is a sure way to mediocrity or worse.  Making it tunable
means that this doesn't have to happen.

Regards,
Alistair