UDP is a connectionless protocol and as such there is no mechanisms for error correction within the UDP at the Transport Layer of the OSI. For this reason, you cannot make the UDP protocol itself reliable. Application developers who utilise this protocol, either are not concerned with this (such as Video Streaming where the odd dropped packet doesn't affect the overall video stream) or the Application Developers will include their own form of error detection mechanisums into the application.
If you are seeing a lot of issues with UDP traffic within your network then i would look at possible issues within the network iteself that is causing the UDP packets to drop.
Wayne Murphy
Firewall.cx Team Member
www.firewall.cx
Now working for a Security Company called Sec-1 Ltd in the UK, for any
Penetration Testing work visit
www.sec-1.com
or PM me for details.
