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Implementation and Performance Evaluation of TCP over QUIC Tunnels

Xuanhong Guo, Zekun Bao, Ying Chen

TL;DR

The paper addresses bringing QUIC advantages to legacy TCP-based applications by encapsulating TCP traffic inside a QUIC tunnel. It implements a lightweight, stream-based TCP-over-QUIC tunnel in Rust using the Quinn library and evaluates throughput, latency, and robustness under varying network conditions. Findings show that TCP over QUIC yields substantially higher throughput than native TCP in lossy or unstable networks (up to around 4–6x at 20% loss) while incurring modest overhead in well-provisioned networks, highlighting the trade-offs between resilience and efficiency. The study demonstrates the viability of QUIC-based tunneling for improving performance in dynamic networks and outlines directions for broader validation and future tunnel designs, including WebTransport-based approaches and deeper congestion-control interactions.

Abstract

QUIC, a UDP-based transport protocol, addresses several limitations of TCP by offering built-in encryption, stream multiplexing, and improved loss recovery. To extend these benefits to legacy TCP-based applications, this paper explores the implementation and evaluation of a TCP over QUIC tunneling approach. A lightweight, stream-based tunnel is constructed using the Rust-based Quinn library, enabling TCP traffic to traverse QUIC connections transparently. Performance is evaluated under varying network conditions, including packet loss, high latency, and out-of-order delivery. Results indicate that TCP over QUIC maintains significantly higher throughput than native TCP in lossy or unstable environments, with up to a high improvement under 20\% packet loss. However, under ideal network conditions, tunneling introduces modest overhead due to encryption and user-space processing. These findings provide insights into the trade-offs of TCP over QUIC tunneling and its suitability for deployment in dynamic or impaired networks.

Implementation and Performance Evaluation of TCP over QUIC Tunnels

TL;DR

The paper addresses bringing QUIC advantages to legacy TCP-based applications by encapsulating TCP traffic inside a QUIC tunnel. It implements a lightweight, stream-based TCP-over-QUIC tunnel in Rust using the Quinn library and evaluates throughput, latency, and robustness under varying network conditions. Findings show that TCP over QUIC yields substantially higher throughput than native TCP in lossy or unstable networks (up to around 4–6x at 20% loss) while incurring modest overhead in well-provisioned networks, highlighting the trade-offs between resilience and efficiency. The study demonstrates the viability of QUIC-based tunneling for improving performance in dynamic networks and outlines directions for broader validation and future tunnel designs, including WebTransport-based approaches and deeper congestion-control interactions.

Abstract

QUIC, a UDP-based transport protocol, addresses several limitations of TCP by offering built-in encryption, stream multiplexing, and improved loss recovery. To extend these benefits to legacy TCP-based applications, this paper explores the implementation and evaluation of a TCP over QUIC tunneling approach. A lightweight, stream-based tunnel is constructed using the Rust-based Quinn library, enabling TCP traffic to traverse QUIC connections transparently. Performance is evaluated under varying network conditions, including packet loss, high latency, and out-of-order delivery. Results indicate that TCP over QUIC maintains significantly higher throughput than native TCP in lossy or unstable environments, with up to a high improvement under 20\% packet loss. However, under ideal network conditions, tunneling introduces modest overhead due to encryption and user-space processing. These findings provide insights into the trade-offs of TCP over QUIC tunneling and its suitability for deployment in dynamic or impaired networks.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 23 sections, 3 equations, 4 figures, 4 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background & Motivation
  3. Comparison of QUIC and TCP Core Mechanisms
  4. Network Tunneling Principle
  5. Related Work
  6. QUIC and TCP Performance Studies
  7. Comparison of QUIC Implementations
  8. Identified Deficiencies
  9. System Design & Implementation
  10. Bidirectional Transfer
  11. Server-Side Endpoint
  12. Client-Side Proxy
  13. Integration
  14. Experimental Methodology
  15. Experimental Setup
  16. ...and 8 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: QUIC-Tun architecture: traffic flow from a local TCP client through the QUIC tunnel to a remote TCP server.
  • Figure 2: This figure shows the impact of the two connections on throughput at different packet loss rates
  • Figure 3: This figure shows the impact of the two connections on throughput at different lags
  • Figure 4: This figure shows the impact of the two connections on throughput at different out of order rates