Network Protocols Glossary
What is a network protocol? Protocols are the rules of the road for how data exists and moves on the network. They allow many different systems and computers to communicate.
Trivial File Transfer (TFTP) Protocol
What is Trivial File Transfer (TFTP) Protocol?
Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a basic, lightweight protocol designed for transferring files between a client and a server over a network. It's considered "trivial" because it lacks many features found in more complex file transfer protocols like FTP.
What is the purpose of TFTP
TFTP operates on a simple client-server model where the client requests a file from the server, and the server responds with the file data. TFTP operates on top of the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which is a connectionless protocol. This means that TFTP doesn't establish a persistent connection between the client and server. Instead, each data packet is sent independently, without guaranteed delivery. TFTP uses a simple error recovery mechanism based on retransmissions of lost or corrupted packets. However, due to the unreliability of UDP, TFTP is not suitable for transferring large or critical files.