TI The Coherent Trivial File Transfer Protocol 

LT CUCS-043-90 

OR COLUM 

YR 1990 

AU John Ioannidis 

AU Gerald Q. Maguire Jr. 

AV ftp cs.columbia.edu:pubreportsreports-1990cucs-043-90.ps.Z 

AB Coherent TFTP is a protocol that takes advantage of the
broadcast nature of CSMA networks to speed up simultaneous
one-to-many file transfers (e.g., when booting diskless
workstations). The CTFTP server lisens and services request for
entire files or portions thereof. CTFTP clients first determine
whether the file they are interested in is already being
transferred, in which case they ``eavesdrop'' and load as much of
it as they can, or they initiate a new transfer. The clients
timeout when the server stops transmitting, and if they are still
missing parts of the file they request them with a block-transfer
request. CTFTP is a back-end protocol; a front end is needed to
handle naming and security issues.