5-Tuple

What Does 5-Tuple Mean?

A 5-tuple refers to a set of five different values that comprise a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection. It includes a source IP address/port number, destination IP address/port number and the protocol in use.

Techopedia Explains 5-Tuple

System and network administrators (NA) use 5-tuples to identify key requirements for creating a secure, operational and bidirectional network connection between two or more remote and local machines.

The source and destination addresses are primary 5-tuple components. The source address is the IP address of the network that creates and sends a data packet, and the destination address is the recipient.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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