Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite)

The Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite) (RFC 3828), which is similar to the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) (RFC 768), but can also serve applications in error-prone network environments that prefer to have partially damaged payloads delivered rather than discarded. If this feature is not used, UDP-Lite is semantically identical to UDP.

History

Wireless links typically have lower bit rates and higher error rates when compared to wired links. Applications such as audio/video streaming can use error-resilient codecs, but are delay-sensitive. Hence retransmission due to checksum errors is expensive. UDP Lite has been developed for these classes of applications. People have used it for streaming media, as well as video over cellphones, with good results.

Protocol dependencies

IP: Typically, UDP-Lite uses IP as its underlying protocol. The assigned protocol number for UDP-Lite is 136.

Example traffic

Frame 1 (60 bytes on wire, 60 bytes captured)
Ethernet II, Src: 00:60:97:a0:e3:7e (00:60:97:a0:e3:7e), Dst: 00:04:75:c7:87:49 (00:04:75:c7:87:49)
Internet Protocol, Src: 139.133.204.185 (139.133.204.185), Dst: 139.133.204.176 (139.133.204.176)
    Version: 4
    Header length: 20 bytes
    Differentiated Services Field: 0x00 (DSCP 0x00: Default; ECN: 0x00)
    Total Length: 40
    Identification: 0xb651 (46673)
    Flags: 0x04 (Don't Fragment)
    Fragment offset: 0
    Time to live: 64
    Protocol: UDPlite (0x88)
    Header checksum: 0xd387 [correct]
    Source: 139.133.204.185 (139.133.204.185)
    Destination: 139.133.204.176 (139.133.204.176)
Lightweight User Datagram Protocol, Src Port: 1024 (1024), Dst Port: 1234 (1234)
    Source port: 1024 (1024)
    Destination port: 1234 (1234)
    Checksum coverage: 8
    Checksum: 0x4614 [correct]
Data (12 bytes)

0000  68 65 6c 6c 6f 20 77 6f 72 6c 64 0a               hello world.

Wireshark

The UDP-Lite dissector is available in Wireshark 0.10.14 and up. It rides with the UDP dissector, using an additional field for checksum coverage length.

Preference Settings

Ignore checksum coverage (default:TRUE) - Ignore the fact that the checksum coverage value is invalid and the datagram should be dropped.

Example capture file

SampleCaptures/udp_lite_full_coverage_0.pcap If coverage=0, the full packet is checksummed over.
SampleCaptures/udp_lite_illegal_1-7.pcap Coverage values between 1..7 (illegal).
SampleCaptures/udp_lite_normal_coverage_8-20.pcap Normal ones with correct checksums (legal).
SampleCaptures/udp_lite_illegal_large-coverage.pcap Three traces with coverage lengths greater than the packet length.
SampleCaptures/udp_lite_checksum_0.pcap Checksum 0 is illegal.

Display Filter

A complete list of UDP-Lite display filter fields can be found in the display filter reference

Show only the UDP-Lite based traffic:

 udplite

Capture Filter

Capture only the UDP-Lite traffic:

 ip proto 136

External links

UDP-Lite UDP-Lite homepage at Electronics Research Group, The University of Aberdeen.
RFC 3828 Lightweight User Datagram Protocol.
RFC 768 User Datagram Protocol.
User Datagram Protocol More Info on User Datagram Protocol

Discussion

Imported from https://wiki.wireshark.org/Lightweight_User_Datagram_Protocol on 2020-08-11 23:15:57 UTC