TCP Options

Note: Use SOL_TCP when specifying TCP options to setsockopt().

TCP_NODELAY - allows turning off the NAGLE algorithm (that is used to delay outgoing packets for overall network performance optimization).

Reason: the OS tries to use the network in an efficient manner. this is achieved by sending together larger packets composed of smaller ones.

Symptom: without TCP_NODELAY, sending a small packet may be delayed for a short period of time. This may cause bad performance for protocols that are heavily affected by connection latency (e.g. send many small packets back & forth).

Parameters: int argument, '1' - turn off NAGLE, '0' - turn it on.