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### E.11 Packet Acknowledgment

By default, when either the host or the target machine receives a packet, the first response expected is an acknowledgment: either ‘`+`’ (to indicate the package was received correctly) or ‘`-`’ (to request retransmission). This mechanism allows the GDB remote protocol to operate over unreliable transport mechanisms, such as a serial line.

In cases where the transport mechanism is itself reliable (such as a pipe or TCP connection), the ‘`+`’/‘`-`’ acknowledgments are redundant. It may be desirable to disable them in that case to reduce communication overhead, or for other reasons. This can be accomplished by means of the ‘`QStartNoAckMode`’ packet; see QStartNoAckMode.

When in no-acknowledgment mode, neither the stub nor GDB shall send or expect ‘`+`’/‘`-`’ protocol acknowledgments. The packet and response format still includes the normal checksum, as described in Overview, but the checksum may be ignored by the receiver.

If the stub supports ‘`QStartNoAckMode`’ and prefers to operate in no-acknowledgment mode, it should report that to GDB by including ‘`QStartNoAckMode+`’ in its response to ‘`qSupported`’; see qSupported. If GDB also supports ‘`QStartNoAckMode`’ and it has not been disabled via the `set remote noack-packet off` command (see Remote Configuration), GDB may then send a ‘`QStartNoAckMode`’ packet to the stub. Only then may the stub actually turn off packet acknowledgments. GDB sends a final ‘`+`’ acknowledgment of the stub’s ‘`OK`’ response, which can be safely ignored by the stub.

Note that `set remote noack-packet` command only affects negotiation between GDB and the stub when subsequent connections are made; it does not affect the protocol acknowledgment state for any current connection. Since ‘`+`’/‘`-`’ acknowledgments are enabled by default when a new connection is established, there is also no protocol request to re-enable the acknowledgments for the current connection, once disabled.

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