What is the meaning of TIME_WAIT state in windows

Question

When I entered netstat -na in cmd prompt I get below out put, What is the meaning of TIME_WAIT State.

C:\user\hp\>netstat -na
port       Local Address            Foreign Address       State
TCP        192.168.1.556:49152      192.168.1.662:3306    TIME_WAIT

Like this I have so many TIME_WAIT.

What is the meaning of TIME_WAIT State ? Is there any problem with TIME_WAIT State ?

Answer 1

From the manual:

The purpose of TIME_WAIT is to keep a connection accepting packets even after the connection has been closed. This is because Internet routing can cause a packet to take a slow route to its destination and it may arrive after both sides have agreed to close. If the port is in use for a new connection, that packet from the old connection could break the protocol or compromise personal information from the original connection. The TIME_WAIT delay prevents this by ensuring that the port cannot be reused until after some time has been permitted for those delayed packets to arrive.