A three-way handshake process is used in TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) network for transmission of data in a reliable way between the host and the client.
It’s called a three-way handshake because three segments are exchanged between the server and the client.
- SYN: The client wants to establish a connection with the server, and sends a segment with SYN(Synchronize Sequence Number) to the server if the server is up and has open ports.
- SYN + ACK: The server responds to the client request with SYN-ACK signal bits set if it has open ports.
- ACK: The client acknowledges the response of a server and sends an ACK(Acknowledgment) packet back to the server.