On Oct 26, 2013, at 12:14 PM, Yaron Sheffer <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> 
> On 2013-10-25 23:51, Yoav Nir wrote:
>> 
>> On Oct 25, 2013, at 11:23 PM, Yaron Sheffer <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Section 2.5.1 recommends using 1280-byte max IP datagram size for
>>>> IPv6 (based on RFC 2460), and 576 bytes (based on RFC 1122). The big
>>>> difference between those two RFCs is not some technical difference
>>>> between IPv6 and IPv4, but that the former was written in 1998 while
>>>> the latter is from 1989. By 1998 it was reasonable to mandate
>>>> infrastructure that could handle 1280-byte datagrams. This has become
>>>> more true, not less in the 15 years since RFC 2460. Pretty much all
>>>> networks today can carry IPv6, and any network that can carry
>>>> 1280-byte IPv6 packets, can just as well carry 1280-byte IPv4
>>>> packets. I don't think there's any point in still making this
>>>> distinction today.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> This draft is about broken networks/devices that are unable to handle IPv4 
>>> fragments. Can we really assume that they can carry IPv6 traffic?
>>> 
>>> Yes, RFC 1122 is very old, but if we recommend a larger size I would like 
>>> to see better justification.
>> 
>> The original IKEv1 fragments were inspired by broken home routers that 
>> wouldn't keep enough state to NAT fragments. They still worked on Ethernet 
>> and 802.11 and had 1500-byte MTU.
>> 
>> The current work was inspired by CGNs doing the same thing. They also deal 
>> with 1500-byte Ethernet.
>> 
>> 1280 leaves room for various tunnels, encapsulations and what not.
>> 
>> Of course, if your implementation is running in some constrained environment 
>> (like the Internet of Things on 802.15.4) you may need different MTUs. But 
>> on the open Internet? You just don't see PMTUs that small anymore.
>> 
>> Yoav
>> 
> If we give a recommendation, I think it should be based on measured data. See 
> for example Sec. 5.5 of 
> http://nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/publications/pmtu-black-holes-msc-thesis.pdf‎
> 

Thanks for the link. And only 1 (out of >1150) probes found a PMTU in IPv4 
smaller than 1280, and that was 1280. More than 2/3 were exactly 1500, and the 
vast majority was over 1400.

Smallest they found was 1240. Any reason to set the limit (much) below that?

Yoav

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