Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> This isn’t actually a “time” as implied by a name — it’s a countdown! Every time a router forwards an ICMP packet along, it’s supposed to decrement the TTL number.

No, it's actually a time, it's just that it has a precision of 1 second.

RFC 791: "The time is measured in units of seconds, but since every module that processes a datagram must decrease the TTL by at least one even if it process the datagram in less than a second, the TTL must be thought of only as an upper bound on the time a datagram may exist."



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: