The two protocol components of TCP/IP deal with different aspects of computer networking. Internet Protocol, the "IP" of TCP/IP is a connectionless protocol which deals only with network packet routing using the IP datagram as the basic unit of networking information. The IP datagram consists of a header followed by a message. The Transmission Control Protocol is the "TCP" of TCP/IP and enables network hosts to establish connections which may be used to exchange data streams. TCP also guarantees that the data between connections is delivered and that it arrives at one network host in the same order as sent from another network host.

The TCP/IP protocol configuration consists of several elements which must be set by editing the appropriate configuration files, or deploying solutions such as the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server which in turn, can be configured to provide the proper TCP/IP configuration settings to network clients automatically. These configuration values must be set correctly in order to facilitate the proper network operation of your Ubuntu system.

The common configuration elements of TCP/IP and their purposes are as follows:

IP routing is a means of specifying and discovering paths in a TCP/IP network along which network data may be sent. Routing uses a set of routing tables to direct the forwarding of network data packets from their source to the destination, often via many intermediary network nodes known as routers. There are two primary forms of IP routing: Static Routing and Dynamic Routing.

Static routing involves manually adding IP routes to the system's routing table, and this is usually done by manipulating the routing table with the route command. Static routing enjoys many advantages over dynamic routing, such as simplicity of implementation on smaller networks, predictability (the routing table is always computed in advance, and thus the route is precisely the same each time it is used), and low overhead on other routers and network links due to the lack of a dynamic routing protocol. However, static routing does present some disadvantages as well. For example, static routing is limited to small networks and does not scale well. Static routing also fails completely to adapt to network outages and failures along the route due to the fixed nature of the route.

Dynamic routing depends on large networks with multiple possible IP routes from a source to a destination and makes use of special routing protocols, such as the Router Information Protocol (RIP), which handle the automatic adjustments in routing tables that make dynamic routing possible. Dynamic routing has several advantages over static routing, such as superior scalability and the ability to adapt to failures and outages along network routes. Additionally, there is less manual configuration of the routing tables, since routers learn from one another about their existence and available routes. This trait also eliminates the possibility of introducing mistakes in the routing tables via human error. Dynamic routing is not perfect, however, and presents disadvantages such as heightened complexity and additional network overhead from router communications, which does not immediately benefit the end users, but still consumes network bandwidth.

TCP is a connection-based protocol, offering error correction and guaranteed delivery of data via what is known as flow control. Flow control determines when the flow of a data stream needs to be stopped, and previously sent data packets should to be re-sent due to problems such as collisions, for example, thus ensuring complete and accurate delivery of the data. TCP is typically used in the exchange of important information such as database transactions.

The User Datagram Protocol (UDP), on the other hand, is a connectionless protocol which seldom deals with the transmission of important data because it lacks flow control or any other method to ensure reliable delivery of the data. UDP is commonly used in such applications as audio and video streaming, where it is considerably faster than TCP due to the lack of error correction and flow control, and where the loss of a few packets is not generally catastrophic.

The Internet Control Messaging Protocol (ICMP) is an extension to the Internet Protocol (IP) as defined in the Request For Comments (RFC) #792 and supports network packets containing control, error, and informational messages. ICMP is used by such network applications as the ping utility, which can determine the availability of a network host or device. Examples of some error messages returned by ICMP which are useful to both network hosts and devices such as routers, include Destination Unreachable and Time Exceeded.

Daemons are special system applications which typically execute continuously in the background and await requests for the functions they provide from other applications. Many daemons are network-centric; that is, a large number of daemons executing in the background on an Ubuntu system may provide network-related functionality. Some examples of such network daemons include the Hyper Text Transport Protocol Daemon (httpd), which provides web server functionality; the Secure SHell Daemon (sshd), which provides secure remote login shell and file transfer capabilities; and the Internet Message Access Protocol Daemon (imapd), which provides E-Mail services.