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From: ww0n+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Walter Lloyd Wimer III)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Ignorant question - multiple connections within TCP ports?
Message-ID: <kYltHfS00aQeA0aH86@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 21 Jul 89 21:26:03 GMT
References: <4908@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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From RFC 793 (Transmission Control Protocol):

 Multiplexing:

    To allow for many processes within a single Host to use TCP
    communication facilities simultaneously, the TCP provides a set of
    addresses or ports within each host.  Concatenated with the network
    and host addresses from the internet communication layer, this forms
    a socket.  A pair of sockets uniquely identifies each connection.
    That is, a socket may be simultaneously used in multiple
    connections.


So in other words, just as two points determine a line in mathematics,
two sockets determine a connection in TCP.


Walt Wimer
Network Development
Carnegie Mellon University