IEN 133





                           The TFTP Protocol

                            January 29, 1980



                            Karen R. Sollins








Summary


     TFTP is a very simple protocol used to transfer files.  It is from
this that its name comes, Trivial File Transfer Protocol or TFTP.  Each
nonterminal packet is acknowledged separately.  This document describes
the protocol and its types of packets.  The document also explains the
reasons behind some of the design decisions.

Acknowledgements


     The protocol was originally designed by Noel Chiappa, and was

redesigned by him, Bob Baldwin and Dave Clark, with comments from Steve

Szymanski.  The original version of this document was written by Bob

Baldwin.  The current version of the document includes modifications

suggested by Noel Chiappa, Dave Clark, Liza Martin and the author.  The

acknowledgement and retransmission scheme was inspired by TCP, and the

error mechanism was suggested by PARC's EFTP abort message.

1: Purpose

     TFTP is a simple protocol to transfer files, and therefore was

named the Trivial File Transfer Protocol or TFTP.  It is built on top of

the Internet User Datagram protocol (UDP or Datagram) [2] so it may be

used to move files between machines on different networks.  It is

designed to be small and easy to implement.  Therefore, it lacks most of

the features of a regular FTP.  The only thing it can do is read and

write files (or mail) from/to a remote server.  It cannot list

directories, and currently has no provisions for user authentication.

In common with other Internet protocols, it passes 8 bit bytes of data.

     Three modes of transfer are currently supported: netascii (1);

binary, raw 8 bit bytes; mail, netascii characters sent to a user rather

than a file.  Additional modes can be defined by pairs of cooperating

hosts.




2: Overview of the Protocol

     Any transfer begins with a request to read or write a file, which

also serves to request a connection.  If the server grants the request,

the connection is opened and the file is sent in fixed length blocks of

512 bytes.  Each data packet contains one block of data, and must be

_______________
(1) This is ascii as defined in "USA Standard Code for Information
Interchange" [1] with the modifications specified in "Telnet Protocol
Specification" [3].  Note that it is 8 bit ascii.  The term "netascii"
will be used throughout this document to mean this particular version of
ascii.

                           - 2 -



acknowledged by an acknowledgment packet before the next packet can be

sent.  A packet of less than 512 bytes signals termination of a

transfer.  If a packet gets lost in the network, the intended recipient

will timeout and may retransmit his last packet (which may be data or an

acknowledgment), thus causing the sender of the lost packet to

retransmit that lost packet.  The sender has to keep just one packet on

hand for retransmission, since the lock step acknowledgment guarantees

that all older packets have been received.  Notice that both machines

involved in a transfer are considered senders and receivers.  One sends

data and receives acknowledgments, the other sends acknowledgments and

receives data.

     Most errors cause termination of the connection.  An error is

signalled by sending an error packet.  This packet is not acknowledged,

and not retransmitted (i.e., a TFTP server or user may terminate after

sending an error message), so the other end of the connection may not

get it.  Therefore timeouts are used to detect such a termination when

the error packet has been lost.  Errors are caused by three types of

events: not being able to satisfy the request (e.g., file not found, or

access violation), receiving a packet which cannot be explained by a

delay or duplication in the network (e.g. an incorrectly formed packet),

and losing access to a necessary resource (e.g., disc full, or source

file truncated during transfer).

     TFTP recognizes only one type of error that does not cause

termination, the source port of a received packet being incorrect.  In

                           - 3 -



this case an error packet is sent to the originating host.  See the

section on the Initial Connection Protocol for more details.

     This protocol is very restrictive, but that makes it easier to

implement.  For example, the fixed length blocks make allocation

straight forward, and the lock step acknowledgement provides flow

control and eliminates the need to reassemble files.




3: Relation to other Protocols

     As mentioned TFTP is designed to be implemented on top of the

Datagram protocol.  Since Datagram is implemented on the Internet

protocol, packets will have an Internet header, a Datagram header, and a

TFTP header.  Additionally, the packets may have a header (LNI, ARPA

header, etc.) to allow them through the local transport medium.  As

shown in Figure 1, the order of the contents of a packet will be local

medium header, if used, Internet header, Datagram header, TFTP header,

followed by the remainder of the TFTP packet.  (This may or may not be

data depending on the type of packet as specified in the TFTP header.)

TFTP does not specify any of the values in the Internet header.

     The source and destination port fields of the Datagram header (its

format is given in the appendix) are used by TFTP and the length field

reflects the size of the TFTP packet.  The transfer identifiers (TID's)

used by TFTP are passed to the Datagram layer to be used as ports.

Therefore for they must be between 0 and 65,535.  The initialization of

TID's is discussed in the section on initial connection protocol.

                           - 4 -



     The TFTP header consists of a 2 byte opcode field which indicates

the packet's type (e.g., DATA, ERROR, etc.)  These opcodes and the

formats of the various types of packets are discussed further in the

section on TFTP packets.


Figure 1. Order of Headers

 ---------------------------------------------------
|  Local Medium  |  Internet  |  Datagram  |  TFTP  |
 ---------------------------------------------------





4: Initial Connection Protocol

     A transfer is established by sending a request (WRQ to write onto a

foreign file system, or RRQ to read from it), and receiving a positive

reply, an acknowledgment packet for write, or the first data packet for

read.  In general an acknowledgment packet will contain the block number

of the data packet being acknowledged.  Each data packet has associated

with it a block number;  block numbers are consecutive and begin with

one.  Since the positive response to a write request is an

acknowledgment packet, in this special case the block number will be

zero.  (Normally, since an acknowledgment packet is acknowledging a data

packet, the acknowledgment packet will contain the block number of the

data packet being acknowledged.) If the reply is an error packet, then

the request is denied for the reason stated in the error packet.

     In order to create a connection, TID's to be used for the duration

of the connection are chosen by the two ends of that connection.  The

TID's chosen for a connection should be randomly chosen, so that the

                           - 5 -



probability that the same number is chosen twice in immediate succession

is very low.  Every packet has associated with it two TID's, the source

TID and the destination TID.  A requesting host chooses its source TID

as described above, and sends its initial request to the known TID 69

(105 octal) on the serving host.  The response to the request, under

normal operation, uses a TID chosen by the server as its source TID and

the TID chosen for the previous message by the requestor as its

destination TID.  The two chosen TID's are then used for the remainder

of the transfer.

     As an example, the following shows the steps used to establish a

connection to write a file.  Note that WRQ, ACK, and DATA are the names

of the write request, acknowledgment, and data types of packets

respectively.  The Appendix contains a similar example for reading a

file.


1.  Host A sends a "WRQ" to host B with

        source= A's TID,  destination= 69.

2.  Host B sends a "ACK" (with block number= 0) to host A with

        source= B's TID,  destination= A's TID.

3.  Host A sends a "DATA" (with block number= 1) to host B with

        source= A's TID,  destination= B's TID.

4.  Host B sends a "ACK" (with block number= 1) to host A with

        source= B's TID,  destination= A's TID.


     In step three, and in all succeeding steps, the hosts should make

sure that the source TID matches the value that was agreed on in step 2.

                           - 6 -



If it doesn't match, an error packet should be sent to the originator,

but the connection should not be aborted.  The following example

demonstates the problem this and the randomly chosen TID's are trying to

solve.

     Host A sends a request to host B.  Somewhere in the network, the

request packet is duplicated, and as a result two acknowledgments are

returned to host A, with different TID's chosen on host B in repsonse to

the two requests.  When the first response arrives, host A continues the

connection.  When the second response to the request arrives, it should

be rejected, but there is no reason to terminate the first connection.

Therefore, if different TID's are chosen on host B and host A checks the

source TID's of the messages it receives, the first connection can be

maintained while the second is rejected.




5: TFTP Packets

     TFTP supports five types of packets, all of which have been

mentioned above:


          opcode  operation

            1     Read request (RRQ)

            2     Write request (WRQ)

            3     Acknowledgment (ACK)

            4     Data (DATA)

            5     Error (ERROR)

                           - 7 -



The TFTP header of a packet contains the opcode associated with that

packet.


Figure 2. RRQ/WRQ

 2 bytes     string    1 byte     string   1 byte
 ------------------------------------------------
| Opcode |  Filename  |   0  |    Mode    |   0  |
 ------------------------------------------------


     RRQ and WRQ packets (opcodes 1 and 2 respectively) have the format

shown in Figure 2.  The file name is a sequence of bytes in netascii

terminated by a zero byte.  The mode field contains the string

"netascii", "binary", or "mail" in netascii indicating the three modes

defined in the protocol.  A host which receives netascii mode data must

translate the data to its own format.  Presumably, every host will

translate its character set to and from netascii.  Binary mode allows

the two communicating hosts to impose their own interpretation on the

data being transmitted;  between similar machines binary mode can be

used to avoid the conversion overhead.  If a host receives a binary file

and then returns it, the returned file must be identical to the file it

received.  Mail mode uses the name of a mail recipient in place of a

file and must begin with a WRQ.  Otherwise it is identical to netascii

mode.


Figure 3. DATA

 2 bytes     2 bytes      n bytes
 ----------------------------------
| Opcode |   Block #  |   Data     |
 ----------------------------------

                                 - 8 -



Data is actually transferred in DATA packets depicted in Figure 3.  DATA

packets (opcode = 4) have a block number and data field.  The block

numbers on data packets begin with one and increase by one for each new

block of data.  This restriction allows the program to use a single

number to discriminate between new packets and duplicates.  The data

field is from zero to 512 bytes long.  If it is 512 bytes long, the

block is not the last block of data; if it is from zero to 511 bytes

long, it signals the last data packet.  (See the section on Normal

Termination for details.)


Figure 4. ACK packet

 2 bytes     2 bytes
 ---------------------
| Opcode |   Block #  |
 ---------------------


     All packets other than those used for termination are acknowledged

individually.  Sending a DATA packet is an acknowledgment for the ACK

packet of the previous DATA packet.  The WRQ and DATA packets are

acknowledged by ACK or ERROR packets, while RRQ and ACK packets are

acknowledged by DATA or ERROR packets.  Figure 4 depicts an ACK packet;

the opcode is 3.  The block number in an ACK echoes the block number of

the DATA packet being acknowledged.  A WRQ is acknowledged with an ACK

packet having a block number of zero.

                                 - 9 -



Figure 5. ERROR packet

 2 bytes     2 bytes      string    1 byte
 -----------------------------------------
| Opcode |  ErrorCode |   ErrMsg   |   0  |
 -----------------------------------------


     An ERROR packet (opcode 5) takes the form depicted in Figure 5.  An

ERROR packet can be the acknowledgment of any other type of packet.  The

error code is a small integer indicating the nature of the error.  A

table of its values and meanings is given in the appendix.  The error

message is intended for human consumption, and should be in netascii.

Like all other strings, it is terminated with a zero byte.




6: Normal Termination

     The end of a transfer is marked by a DATA packet that contains

between 0 and 511 bytes of data (i.e. Datagram length < 516).  This

packet is acknowledged by an ACK packet like all other DATA packets.

The final ACK packet is never retransmitted; the host acknowledging the

final DATA packet may terminate its side of the connection on sending

the final ACK.  On the other hand, the host sending the last DATA must

retransmit it until the packet is acknowledged or the sending host times

out.  If the response is an ACK, the transmission was completed

successfully.  If it is an ERROR (unknown transfer ID), or the sender of

the data times out and is not prepared to retransmit any more, the

transfer may still have been completed successfully, after which the

acknowledger may have experienced a problem.  It is also possible in

                           - 10 -



this case that the transfer was unsuccessful.  In any case, the

connection has been closed.




7: Premature Termination

     If a request can not be granted, or some error occurs during the

transfer, then an ERROR packet (opcode 5) is sent.  This is only a

courtesy since it will not be retransmitted or acknowledged, so it may

never be received.  Timeouts must also be used to detect errors.

                           - 11 -



APPENDIX




Order of Headers


                                                2 bytes
 ----------------------------------------------------------
|  Local Medium  |  Internet  |  Datagram  |  TFTP Opcode  |
 ----------------------------------------------------------



TFTP Formats


Type  Op #     Format without header
____________________________________


      2 bytes    string   1 byte     string   1 byte
      -----------------------------------------------
RRQ/ | 01/02 |  Filename  |   0  |    Mode    |   0  |
WRQ   -----------------------------------------------



      2 bytes    2 bytes       n bytes
      ---------------------------------
DATA | 03    |   Block #  |    Data    |
      ---------------------------------


     2 bytes    2 bytes
     -------------------
ACK | 04    |   Block #  |
     --------------------


       2 bytes  2 bytes        string    1 byte
       ----------------------------------------
ERROR | 05    |  ErrorCode |   ErrMsg   |   0  |
       ----------------------------------------

                           - 12 -



Initial Connection Protocol for reading a file


1.  Host A sends a "RRQ" to host B with

        source= A's TID, destination= 69.

2.  Host B sends a "DATA" (with block number= 1) to host A with

        source= B's TID, destination= A's TID.

3.  Host A sends an "ACK" (with block number= 1) to host B with

        source= A's TID, destination= B's TID.

                           - 13 -



Error Codes



Value   Meaning

_______________


0       Not defined, see error message (if any).

1       File not found.

2       Access violation.

3       Disc full or allocation exceeded.

4       Illegal TFTP operation.

5       Unknown transfer ID.

                           - 14 -



Internet User Datagram Header



Format





 0                   1                   2                   3
 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|          Source Port          |       Destination Port        |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|            Length             |           Checksum            |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+




Values of Fields


Source Port     Picked by originator of packet.
Dest. Port      Picked by destination machine (69 for RRQ or WRQ).
Length          Number of bytes in packet after Datagram header.
Checksum        Reference 2 describes rules for computing checksum.
                Field contains zero if unused.


Note: TFTP passes transfer identifiers (TID's) to the Internet User
Datagram protocol to be used as the source and destination ports.

                           - 15 -






References


1.      USA Standard Code for Information Interchange,
        USASI X3.4-1968.

2.      Postel, Jon., "User Datagram Protocol," IEN 88, May 2,
        1979.

3.      "Telnet Protocol Specification," RFC552, NIC 18639,
        August, 1973.