Something tells me you're suddenly going to find yourself with an influx of correct answers...
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:18 PM, William Herrin <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Derek Andrew <[email protected]> wrote: >>> > You implement a firewall on which you block all ICMP packets. What >>> > part of the TCP protocol (not IP in general, TCP specifically) >>> > malfunctions as a result? >> >> Isn't MTU discovery on IP and not TCP? > > If you want to overthink the question, the failure in the TCP protocol > is that it doesn't adjust the MSS to match the path MTU. It continues > to rely on the incorrect path MTU estimate, sending too-large packets > which will never arrive. This happens because TCP doesn't receive a > notification that the path MTU estimate has changed from the default > because the lower layer PMTUD algorithm never receives the expected > ICMP packet. > > This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates > to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS > clamping and RFC 4821. > > The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine. > > Regards, > Bill Herrin > > > > > -- > William D. Herrin ................ [email protected] [email protected] > 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> > Falls Church, VA 22042-3004 > -- 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

