我最近看了Richards Stevens写的“UNIX网络编程，Vol. 1”，我发现除了TCP和UDP之外还有第三个传输层标准:SCTP。
概要:SCTP是一种传输级协议，它像UDP一样是消息驱动的，但像TCP一样可靠。下面是来自IBM DeveloperWorks的简短介绍。
老实说，我以前从未听说过SCTP。我不记得在任何网络书籍中读到过它，也不记得在我上的课上听说过它。阅读其他提到SCTP的stackoverflow问题表明，我并不是唯一一个缺乏这种知识的人。
为什么SCTP如此不为人知?为什么不怎么使用呢?
当前回答
阅读SCTP维基百科页面，我想说主要原因是SCTP是一个非常年轻的协议(在2000年提出)，目前主流操作系统(Windows、OS X、Linux)都不支持它。
如果“非常年轻”对你来说似乎不合适，那么想想IPV6:“2008年12月，尽管已经是标准跟踪协议诞生10周年，IPV6在全球范围内的普遍部署还处于起步阶段。”
其他回答
阅读SCTP维基百科页面，我想说主要原因是SCTP是一个非常年轻的协议(在2000年提出)，目前主流操作系统(Windows、OS X、Linux)都不支持它。
如果“非常年轻”对你来说似乎不合适，那么想想IPV6:“2008年12月，尽管已经是标准跟踪协议诞生10周年，IPV6在全球范围内的普遍部署还处于起步阶段。”
SCTP不是很为人所知，也不是经常使用/部署，因为:
Widespread: Not widely integrated in TCP/IP stacks (in 2013: still missing natively in latest Mac OSX and Windows. 2020 update: still not in Windows nor Mac OS X) Libraries: Few high level bindings in easy to use languages (Disclaimer: i'm maintainer of pysctp, SCTP easy stack support for Python) NAT: Doesn't cross NAT very well/at all (less than 1% internet home & enterprise routers do NAT on SCTP). Popularity: No general public app use it Programming paradigm: it changed a bit: it's still a socket, but you can connect many hosts to many hosts (multihoming), datagram is ordered and reliable, erc... Complexity: SCTP stack is complex to implement (due to above) Competition: Multipath TCP is coming and should address multihoming needs / capabilities so people refrain from implementing SCTP if possible, waiting for MTCP Niche: Needs SCTP fills are very peculiar (ordered reliable datagrams, multistream) and not needed by much applications Security: SCTP evades security controls (some firewalls, most IDSes, all DLPs, does not appear on netstat except CentOS/Redhat/Fedora...) Audit-ability: Something like 3 companies in the world routinely do audits of SCTP security (Disclaimer: I work in one of them) Learning curve: Not much toolchain to play with SCTP (check the excellent withsctp that combines nicely with netcat or use socat, 2020 edit: nmap supports it for a few years now ) Under the hood: Used mostly in telecom and everytime you send SMS, start surfing the net on your mobile or make phone calls, you're often triggering messages that flow over SCTP (SIGTRAN/SS7 with GSM/UMTS, Diameter with LTE/IMS/RCS, S1AP/X2AP with LTE), so you actually use it a lot but you never know about it ;-) 2020 edit: it's being removed from the core 5G network (no more Diameter, HTTP/2 instead) and will be only used in the 5G radio access network between antennas and core.
我们中的许多人很快就会使用SCTP，因为WebRTC数据通道使用它在UDP之上创建一个类似tcp的可靠层——SCTP over DTLS over UDP: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb-data-channel-13#section-6
它可能不为人所知，但也不是没有被使用过。最近，IETF发布了一份关于使用SCTP作为HTTP传输层协议的草案。
Sctp诞生得太晚了，对于很多情况，TCP已经足够了。
此外，据我所知，它的大部分使用是在电信领域。
