In computer networking, the Reliable User Datagram Protocol (RUDP) is a transport layer protocol designed at Bell Labs for the Plan 9 operating system. It aims to provide a solution where UDP is too primitive because guaranteed-order packet delivery is desirable, but TCP adds too much complexity/overhead.

It extends UDP by adding the following additional features:

1. Acknowledgment of received packets
2. Windowing and congestion control
3. Retransmission of lost packets
4. Overbuffering (Faster than real-time streaming)

RUDP is not currently a formal standard, however it was described in an IETF internet-draft in 1999. It has not been proposed for standardization.

References

• http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc908.txt (Version 1)
• http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1151.txt (Version 2)
• Plan 9 implementation of RUDP
• http://www.javvin.com/protocolRUDP.html
• http://www3.ietf.org/proceedings/99mar/I-D/draft-ietf-sigtran-reliable-udp-00.txt

Transport layer protocols | Internet protocols

Reliable User Datagram Protocol