Tcptrace Time Sequence Graph

This graph format plots the "activity" on the connection. More and more details is available as you "zoom in" with xplot. The Y axis shows the sequence number space of the connection, the X axis gives the time that those segments were active (sent/acked).

First graph

At this distance, you can make out the following features
General Slope
The slope of the curve shows the throughput over time.
Red Letter R
These are places where a retransmission took place. That makes it easier to see where to zoom in.

Closeup 1

This is a closeup of the middle of the connection. At this distance, you can make out the following features
White Arrows
The white arrows are segments sent. The upper and lower limit of the arrows gives the sequence number of the first and last byte in the segment.
Red Arrows
The red arrows are ALSO segments, but they're retransmissions.
Yellow Line
The Yellow Line is the receive window advertised by the receiver.
Green Line
The Green Line tracks the ACKs returned by the receiver.
"Little Green Ticks"
The little green tick marks below the green line on the right side of the graph indicate duplicate ACKs (acking the same sequence number again).
"Little Yellow Ticks"
The little yellow tick marks above the yellow line on the right side of the graph indicate a receive window advertisement that is the same as the previous advertisement.

Closeup 2

This is a closeup of the beginning of the connection. From this distance, you can make out the following features
SYN
This is the syn segment being sent

SACKs

This closeup shows some selective ACKs (SACKS)
Purple arrow
This is a selective ACK

PUSHs

This closeup shows some segments sent with the PUSH bit set.
Diamond-topped segment
This is a PUSHed segment. This feature was added after the graphs above, but segments whose upper symbol is a diamond rather than an arrow were sent with the PUSH bit set.

Shawn Ostermann
Last modified: Tue Jul 15 15:22:25 1997