The Coherent File Distribution Protocol (CFDP) has been designed to speed up one-to-many file transfer operations that exhibit traffic coherence on media with broadcast capability. Examples of such coherent file transfers are identical diskless workstations booting simultaneously, software upgrades being distributed to more than one machines at a site, a certain "object" (bitmap, graph, plain text, etc.) that is being discussed in a real-time electronic conference or class being sent to all participants, and so on. A CFDP client that wants to receive a file first contacts a server to acquire a "ticket" for the file in question. This server could be a suitably modified BOOTP server, the equivalent of the tftpd daemon, etc. The server responds with a 32-bit ticket that will be used in the actual file transfers.