One document matched: draft-ietf-pmtud-method-05.txt
Differences from draft-ietf-pmtud-method-04.txt
Network Working Group M. Mathis
Internet-Draft J. Heffner
Expires: April 26, 2006 PSC
October 23, 2005
Path MTU Discovery
draft-ietf-pmtud-method-05
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
Abstract
This document describes a robust method for Path MTU Discovery that
relies on TCP or some other Packetization Layer to probe an Internet
path with progressively larger packets. This method is described as
an extension to RFC 1191 and RFC 1981, which specify ICMP based Path
MTU Discovery for IP versions 4 and 6, respectively.
The general strategy of the new algorithm is to start with a small
MTU and search upward, testing successively larger MTUs by probing
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with single packets. If the probe is successfully delivered and
satisfies a subsequent verification phase then the MTU is raised. If
the probe is lost, it is treated as an MTU limitation and not as a
congestion signal.
There are several options for integrating PLPMTUD with classical path
MTU discovery. PLPMTUD can be minimally configured to perform ICMP
black hole recovery to increase the robustness of classical path MTU
discovery, or ICMP processing can be completely disabled, and PLPMTUD
can completely replace classical path MTU discovery.
In the latter configuration, PLPMTUD exactly parallels congestion
control. An end-to-end transport protocol adjusts non-protocol
properties of the data stream (window size or packet size) while
using packet losses to deduce the appropriateness of the adjustments.
This technique seems to be more philosophically consistent with the
end-to-end principle than relying on ICMP messages containing
transcribed headers of multiple protocol layers.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Revision History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.1. Changes since version -04, February 2005 (IETF 62) . . 5
1.1.2. Changes since version -03, October 2004 (IETF 61) . . 5
1.1.3. Changes since version -02, July 19th 2004 (IETF 60) . 5
2. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5. Layering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.1. Accounting for header sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2. Storing PMTU information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.3. Accounting for IPsec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4. Multicast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6. Common Packetization Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.1. Mechanism to detect loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.2. Generating probes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Host Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. The Probing Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Packet size ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.2. Selecting initial values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
8.3. Selecting probe size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
8.4. Probing preconditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.5. Conducting a probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.6. Response to probe results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.6.1. Probe success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.6.2. Probe failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.6.3. Probe timeout failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.6.4. Probe inconclusive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.7. Full stop timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.8. MTU verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9. Diagnostic Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
10. Specific Packetization Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
10.1. Probing method using TCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
10.2. Probing method using SCTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
10.3. Probing method using IP fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . 25
10.4. Probing method using applications . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
11.1. Normative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
11.2. Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Appendix A. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix B. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix C. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 31
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1. Introduction
This document describes a method for Packetization Layer Path MTU
Discovery (PLPMTUD) which is an extension to existing Path MTU
discovery methods as described in RFC 1191 [2] and RFC 1981 [3]. The
proper MTU is determined by starting with small packets and probing
with successively larger packets. The bulk of the algorithm is
implemented above IP, in the transport layer (e.g. TCP) or other
"Packetization Protocol" that is responsible for determining packet
boundaries.
This document draws heavily RFC 1191 [2] and RFC 1981 [3] for
terminology, ideas and some of the text.
This document describes methods to discover the path MTU using
features of existing protocols. The methods apply to IPv4 and IPv6,
and many transport protocols. They do not require cooperation from
the lower layers (except that they are consistent about what packet
sizes are acceptable) or the far node. Variants in implementations
will not cause interoperability problems.
The methods described in this document are carefully designed to
maximize robustness in the presence of less than ideal
implementations of other protocols or Internet components.
For sake of clarity we uniformly prefer TCP and IPv6 terminology. In
the terminology section we also present the analogous IPv4 terms and
concepts for the IPv6 terminology. In a few situations we describe
specific details that are different between IPv4 and IPv6.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [4].
This draft is a product of the Path MTU Discovery (pmtud) working
group of the IETF. Please send comments and suggestions to
pmtud@ietf.org. Interim drafts and other useful information will be
posted at http://www.psc.edu/~mathis/MTU/pmtud/index.html .
1.1. Revision History
These are all recent substantive changes, in reverse chronological
order. This section will be removed prior to publication as an RFC.
Note that there are still some missing details that need to be
resolved. These are flagged by @@@@. None of the missing details
are serious.
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1.1.1. Changes since version -04, February 2005 (IETF 62)
General restructuring and rewriting of some sections based on new
experience. Relaxed and generalized a lot of over-specified
language, e.g., the search strategy description.
Decoupled verification from probing, and relaxed its specification.
Removed all specified changes to ICMP processing. We decided this
was out of scope for this particular document.
Changed all language to refer to MTU rather than MPS.
1.1.2. Changes since version -03, October 2004 (IETF 61)
A number of minor style and grammar edits.
1.1.3. Changes since version -02, July 19th 2004 (IETF 60)
Many minor updates throughout the document.
Added a section describing the interactions between PLPMTUD and
congestion control.
Removed a difficult to implement requirement for future data to
transmit.
Added "IP Fragmentation" and "Application protocol" as Packetization
Layers.
Clarified interactions between TCP SACK and MTU.
Updated SCTP section to reflect new probing method using "PAD
chunks".
Distilled the protocol specific material into separate subsections
for each protocol.
Added a section on common requirements and functions for all
Packetization Layers. More accurately characterized the
"bidirectional" (and other) requirements of the PL protocol. Updated
the search strategy in this new section.
Change "ICMP can't fragment" and "packet too big" to uniformly use
"ICMP PTB message" everywhere.
Added Stanislav Shalunov's observation that PLPMTUD parallels
congestion control.
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Better described the range of interoperability with classical pMTUd
in the introduction.
Removed vague language about "not being a protocol" and "excessive
Loss".
Slightly redefined flow: the granularity of PLPMTUD within a path.
Many English NITs and clarifications per Gorry Fairhurst and others.
Passes strict xml2rfc checking.
Add a paragraph encouraging interface MTUs that are the optimal for
the NIC, rather than standard for the media.
Added a revision history section.
2. Overview
This document describes a method for TCP or other packetization
protocols to dynamically discover the MTU of a path without explicit
signals from the network. This method is most efficient when used in
conjunction with the current ICMP based path MTU discovery mechanism
as specified in RFC1191 and RFC1981. When used in such a way, it
eliminates many robustness problems since it does not depend on the
delivery ICMP messages.
These procedures are applicable to TCP and other transport- or
application-level protocols that are responsible for choosing packet
boundaries (e.g. segment sizes) and have an acknowledgment structure
that delivers to the sender accurate and timely indications of which
packets were lost.
The general strategy is for the packetization layer to find an
appropriate path MTU by probing the path with progressively larger
packets. If a probe packet is successfully delivered, then the
effective path MTU is raised to the probe size.
The isolated loss of a probe packet (with or without an ICMP Packet
To Big message) is treated as an indication of an MTU limit, and not
as a congestion indicator. In this case alone, the packetization
protocol is permitted to retransmit any missing data without
adjusting the congestion window.
If there is a timeout or additional packets are lost during the
probing process, the probe is considered to be inconclusive (e.g. the
lost probe does not necessarily indicate that the probe exceeded the
path MTU). Furthermore the losses are treated like any other
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congestion indication: window or rate adjustments are mandatory per
the relevant congestion control standards [12] Probing can resume
after a delay which is determined by the nature of the detected
failure.
PLPMTUD uses a searching technique to find the path MTU. Each
conclusive probe narrows the MTU search range, either by raising the
low limit on a successful probe or lowering the high limit on a
failed probe, until the search range converges toward the true path
MTU. For most transport layers, it makes sense to abandon the search
once the range is narrow enough where the likely gain from picking a
larger effective path MTU is smaller than the search overhead to find
it.
The most likely (and least serious) PLPMTUD failure is the link
experiencing congestion related losses while probing. In this case
it is appropriate to retry a probe of the same size as soon as the
packetization layer has fully adapted to the congestion and recovered
from the losses. In other cases, additional losses or timeouts
indicate problems with the link or packetization layer. In these
situations it is desirable to use longer delays depending on the
severity of the error.
An optional verification phase can be used to detect some situations
where raising the MTU raises the packet loss rate. For example, if a
link is striped across multiple physical channels with inconsistent
MTUs, it is possible that a probe will be delivered even if it is too
large for some of the physical channels. In such cases raising the
path MTU to the probe size can cause severe packet loss and abysmal
performance. After raising the MTU, the new MTU size can be verified
by monitoring the loss rate.
PLPMTUD introduces some flexibility in the implementation of
classical path MTU discovery, which is subject to protocol failures
(connection hangs) if ICMP PTB messages are not delivered or
processed for some reason. With PLPMTUD, classical path MTU
discovery can include additional consistency checks (e.g. validating
additional fields in the transcribed header) without increasing the
risk of connection hangs due to false failures of the added checks.
Such changes to classical path MTU discovery are beyond the scope of
this document.
In the limiting case, all ICMP PTB messages might be unconditionally
ignored, and PLPMTUD can be used a the sole method used to discover
the path MTU. In this configuration, PLPMTUD parallels congestion
control. An end-to-end transport protocol adjusts non-protocol
properties of the data stream (window size or packet size) while
using packet losses to deduce the appropriateness of the adjustments.
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This technique seems to be more philosophically consistent with the
end-to-end principle of the Internet than relying on ICMP messages
containing transcribed headers of multiple protocol layers.
Most of the difficulty in implementing PLPMTUD arises because it
needs to be implemented in several different places within a single
node. In general, each packetization protocol needs to have its own
implementation of PLPMTUD. Furthermore, the natural mechanism to
share path MTU information between concurrent or subsequent
connections over the same path is a path information cache in the IP
layer. The various packetization protocols need to have the means to
access and update the shared cache in the IP layer. This memo
describes PLPMTUD in terms of its primary subsystems without fully
describing how they are assembled into a complete implementation.
Section 3 provides a complete glossary of terms.
Relatively few details of PLPMTUD affect interoperability with other
standards or Internet protocols. These details are specified in
RFC2119 standards language in section 4. The vast majority of the
implementation details described in this document are recommendations
based on experiences with earlier versions of path MTU discovery.
These recommendations are motivated by a desire to maximize
robustness of PLPMTUD in the presence of less than ideal network
conditions as they exist in the field.
Section 5 describes how to partition PLPMTUD into layers, and how to
manage the "path information cache" in the IP layer.
Section 6 describes the general Packetization Layer properties and
features needed to implement PLPMTUD.
Section 7 recommends using IPv4 fragmentation in a configuration that
mimics IPv6 functionality, to minimize future problems migrating to
IPv6.
Section 8 describes the details of how to use probes to search for
the path MTU.
Section 9 describes a programing interface for applications acting as
packetization layers, and for tools to be able to diagnose path
problems that interfere with path MTU discovery.
Section 10 discusses implementation details for specific protocols,
including TCP.
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3. Terminology
We use the following terms in this document:
IP: Either IPv4 [1] or IPv6 [5].
Node: A device that implements IP.
Router: A node that forwards IP packets not explicitly addressed to
itself.
Host: Any node that is not a router.
Upper layer: A protocol layer immediately above IP. Examples are
transport protocols such as TCP and UDP, control protocols such as
ICMP, routing protocols such as OSPF, and Internet or lower-layer
protocols being "tunneled" over (i.e., encapsulated in) IP such as
IPX, AppleTalk, or IP itself.
Link: A communication facility or medium over which nodes can
communicate at the link layer, i.e., the layer immediately below
IP. Examples are Ethernets (simple or bridged); PPP links; X.25,
Frame Relay, or ATM networks; and Internet (or higher) layer
"tunnels", such as tunnels over IPv4 or IPv6. Occasionally we use
the slightly more general term "lower layer" for this concept.
Interface: A node's attachment to a link.
Address: An IP-layer identifier for an interface or a set of
interfaces.
Packet: An IP header plus payload.
MTU: Maximum Transmission Unit, the size in bytes of the largest IP
packet, including the IP header and payload, that can be
transmitted on a link or path. Note that this could more properly
be called the IP MTU, to be consistent with how other standards
organizations use the acronym MTU.
Link MTU: The Maximum Transmission Unit, i.e., maximum IP packet size
in bytes, that can be conveyed in one piece over a link. Beware
that this definition differers from the definition used by other
standards organizations.
For IETF documents, link MTU is uniformly defined as the IP MTU
over the link. This includes the IP header, but excludes link
layer headers and other framing which is not part of IP or the IP
payload.
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Be aware that other standards organizations generally define link
MTU to include the link layer headers.
Path: The set of links traversed by a packet between a source node
and a destination node.
Path MTU, or pMTU: The minimum link MTU of all the links in a path
between a source node and a destination node.
Classical path MTU discovery: Process described in RFC 1191 and RFC
1981, in which nodes rely on ICMP "Packet Too Big" (PTB) messages
to learn the MTU of a path.
Packetization layer: The layer of the network stack which segments
data into packets.
Effective PMTU: The current estimated value for PMTU used by a
packetization layer for segmentation.
PLPMTUD: Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery, the method described
in this document, which is an extension to classical PMTU
discovery.
PTB (Packet Too Big) message: An ICMP message reporting that an IP
packet is too large to forward. This is the IPv6 term that
corresponds to the IPv4 "ICMP Can't fragment" message.
Flow: A context in which MTU discovery algorithms can be invoked.
This is naturally an instance of the packetization protocol, e.g.
one side of a TCP connection.
MSS: The TCP Maximum Segment Size [6], the maximum payload size
available to the TCP layer. This is typically the path MTU minus
the size of the IP and TCP headers.
Probe packet: A packet which is being used to test a path for a
larger MTU.
Probe size: The size of a packet being used to probe for a larger
MTU.
Probe gap: The payload data that will be lost and need to be
retransmitted if the probe is not delivered.
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Leading window: Any unacknowledged data in a flow at the time a probe
is sent.
Trailing window: Any data in a flow sent after a probe, but before
the probe is acknowledged.
Search strategy: The heuristics used to choose successive probe sizes
to converge on the proper path MTU, as described in section
Section 8.3.
Full stop timeout: a timeout where none of the packets transmitted
after some event are acknowledged by the receiver, including any
retransmissions. This is taken as an indication of some failure
condition in the network, such as a routing change onto a link
with a smaller MTU.
4. Requirements
All Internet nodes SHOULD implement PLPMTUD in order to discover and
take advantage of the largest MTU supported along the Internet path.
Links MUST NOT deliver packets that are larger than their MTU. Links
that have parametric limitations (e.g. MTU bounds due to limited
clock stability) MUST include explicit mechanisms to consistently
reject packets that might otherwise be nondeterministically
delivered.
All hosts SHOULD use IPv4 fragmentation in a mode that mimics IPv6
functionality. All fragmentation SHOULD be done on the host, and all
IPv4 packets, including fragments, SHOULD have the DF bit set such
that they will not be fragmented (again) in the network. See
Section 7.
The requirements below only apply to those implementations that
include PLPMTUD.
To use PLPMTUD a Packetization Layer MUST have a loss reporting
mechanism that provides the sender with timely and accurate
indications of which packets were lost in the network.
Normal congestion control algorithms MUST remain in effect under all
conditions except when only an isolated probe packet is detected as
lost. In this case alone the normal congestion (window or data rate)
reduction MAY be suppressed. If any other data loss is detected,
standard congestion control MUST take place.
Suppressed congestion control (as above) MUST be rate limited such
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that it occurs less frequently than the worst case loss rate for TCP
congestion control at a comparable data rate over the same path (i.e.
less than the "TCP-friendly" loss rate [@@]). This SHOULD be
enforced by requiring a minimum headway between a suppressed
congestion adjustment (due to a failed probe) and the next attempted
probe, which is equal to one round trip time for each packet
permitted by the congestion window. Alternatively this may be
enforced by not suppressing congestion control if a 2nd probe is lost
too soon after the 1st lost probe. This and other issues relating to
congestion control are discussed in section @@@window.
Whenever the MTU is raised, the congestion state variables MUST be
rescaled so as not to raise the window size in bytes (or data rate in
bytes per seconds).
Whenever the MTU is reduced (e.g. when processing ICMP PTB messages)
the congestion state variable SHOULD be rescaled not to raise the
window size in packets.
If PLPMTUD updates the MTU for a particular path, all Packetization
Layer sessions that share the path representation SHOULD be notified
to make use of the new MTU and make the required congestion
adjustments.
All implementations MUST include a mechanism to implement diagnostic
tools that do not rely on the operating systems implementation of
path MTU discovery. This specifically requires the ability to send
packets that are larger than the known MTU for the path, and
collecting any resultant ICMP error message. See section 9 for
further discussion of MTU diagnostics.
5. Layering
Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery is most easily implemented by
splitting its functions between layers. The IP layer is the best
place to keep shared state, collect the ICMP messages, track IP
header sizes and manage MTU information provided by the link layer
interfaces. However, the procedures that PLPMTUD uses for probing,
verification and scanning for the path MTU are very tightly coupled
to features of the Packetization Layers such as data recovery and
congestion control state machines.
Note that this layering approach is consistent with the advice in the
current PMTUD specifications [2][3]. Many implementations of
classical PMTU Discovery are already split along these same layers.
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5.1. Accounting for header sizes
The way in which PLPMTUD operates across multiple layers requires a
mechanism for accounting header sizes at all layers between IP and
the packetization layer (inclusive). When transmitting non-probe
packets, it is sufficient for the packetization layer to ensure an
upper bound on final IP packet size, so as not to exceed the current
effective path MTU. All packetization layers participating in
classical path MTU discovery have this requirement already. When
participating in PLPMTUD and transmitting a probe packet, the
packetization layer must determine that packet's final size including
IP headers. This requirement is specific to PLPMTUD, and to satisfy
it existing implementations may need additional inter-layer
communication.
5.2. Storing PMTU information
This memo uses the concept of a "flow" to define the scope of the
path MTU discovery algorithms. For many implementations, a flow
would naturally correspond to an instance of each protocol, i.e.,
each connection or session. In such implementations the algorithms
described in this document are performed within each session for each
protocol. The observed PMTU can optionally be shared between
different flows sharing a common path representation.
Alternatively, PLPMTUD could be implemented such that the complete
PLPMTUD state is associated with the path representations. Such an
implementation could use multiple connections or sessions for each
probe sequence. This approach may converge much more quickly in some
environments such as when an application uses many small connections,
each of which may be too short to complete the path MTU discovery
process.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive. However, due to
differing constraints on generating probes (section Section 6.2) and
the MTU searching algorithm (section @@@search), it may not be
feasible for different packetization layer protocols to share PLPMTUD
state. This suggests that it may be possible for some protocols to
share probing state, but not others. In this case, the different
protocols can still share the observed PMTU but they will have
differing convergence properties.
The IP layer is the best place to store cached PMTU values and other
shared state such as MTU values reported by ICMP PTB messages.
Ideally this shared state should be associated with a specific path
traversed by packets exchanged between the source and destination
nodes. However, in most cases a node will not have enough
information to completely and accurately identify such a path.
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Rather, a node must associate a PMTU value with some local
representation of a path. It is left to the implementation to select
the local representation of a path.
An implementation could use the destination address as the local
representation of a path. The PMTU value associated with a
destination would be the minimum PMTU learned across the set of all
paths in use to that destination. The set of paths in use to a
particular destination is expected to be small, in many cases
consisting of a single path. This approach will result in the use of
optimally sized packets on a per-destination basis. This approach
integrates nicely with the conceptual model of a host as described in
[RFC 2461]: a PMTU value could be stored with the corresponding entry
in the destination cache. Storing the minimum value is suggested
since NATs and other forms of middle boxes may exhibit differing
PMTUs at a single IP address.
Note that network or subnet numbers are not suitable to use as
representations of a path, because there is not a general mechanism
to determine the network mask at the remote host.
If IPv6 flows are in use, an implementation could use the IPv6 flow
id [5][9] as the local representation of a path. Packets sent to a
particular destination but belonging to different flows may use
different paths, with the choice of path depending on the flow id.
This approach will result in the use of optimally sized packets on a
per-flow basis, providing finer granularity than MTU values
maintained on a per-destination basis.
For source routed packets, i.e., packets containing an IPv6 routing
header, or IPv4 LSRR or SSRR options, the source route may further
qualify the local representation of a path. An implementation could
use source route information in the local representation of a path.
5.3. Accounting for IPsec
This document does not take a stance on the placement of IPsec, which
logically sits between IP and the Packetization Layer. The PLPMTUD
implementation can treat IPsec either as part of IP or as part of the
Packetization Layer, as long as the accounting is consistent within
the implementation. If IPsec is treated as part of the IP layer,
then each security association to a remote node may need to be
treated as a separate path; i.e., the security association is used to
represent the path. If IPsec is treated as part of the packetization
layer, the IPsec header size must be included in the Packetization
Layer's header size calculations. [11]
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5.4. Multicast
In the case of a multicast destination address, copies of a packet
may traverse many different paths to reach many different nodes. The
local representation of the "path" to a multicast destination must in
fact represent a potentially large set of paths.
Minimally, an implementation could maintain a single MTU value to be
used for all packets originated from the node. This MTU value would
be the minimum MTU learned across the set of all paths in use by the
node. This approach is likely to result in the use of smaller
packets than is necessary for many paths.
If the application using multicast gets complete delivery reports
(unlikely because this requirement has poor scaling properties),
PLPMTUD could be implemented in multicast protocols.
6. Common Packetization Properties
This section describes general Packetization Layer properties and
characteristics needed to implement PLPMTUD. It also describes some
implementation issues that are common to all Packetization Layers.
6.1. Mechanism to detect loss
It is important that the Packetization Layer has a timely and robust
mechanism for detecting and reporting losses. PLPMTUD makes MTU
adjustments on the basis of detected losses. Any delays or
inaccuracy in loss notification is likely to result in incorrect MTU
decisions or slow convergence.
It is best if Packetization Protocols use fairly explicit loss
notification such as selective acknowledgments, although implicit
mechanisms such as TCP Reno style duplicate acknowledgments counting
are sufficient. It is important that the mechanism can robustly
distinguish between the isolated loss of just a probe and other
combinations of losses.
Many protocol implementation have complicated mechanisms such as SACK
scoreboards to distinguish between real losses and temporary missing
data due to reordering in the network. In these implementations it
is desirable to signal losses to PLPMTUD as a side effect of the data
retransmission. This approach offers the maximum protection from
confusing signals due to reordering and other events that might mimic
losses.
PLPMTUD can also be implemented in protocols that rely on timeouts as
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their primary mechanism for loss recovery; however, timeout should be
used only when there are no other alternatives.
6.2. Generating probes
There are several possible ways to alter packetization layers to
generate probes. The different techniques incur different overheads
in three areas: difficulty in generating the probe packet (in terms
of packetization layer implementation complexity and extra data
motion) possible additional network capacity consumed by the probes
and the overhead of recovering from failed probes (both network and
protocol overheads).
Some protocols might be extended to allow arbitrary padding with
dummy data. This greatly simplifies the implementation because the
probing can be performed without participation from higher layers and
if the probe fails, the missing data (the "probe gap") is assured to
fit within the current MTU when it is retransmitted. This is
probably the most appropriate method for protocols that support
arbitrary length options or multiplexing within the protocol itself.
Many Packetization Layer protocols can carry pure control messages
(without any data from higher protocol layers) which can be padded to
arbitrary lengths. For example the SCTP HEARTBEAT message can be
used in this manner (See section 10.2) . This approach has the
advantage that nothing needs to be retransmitted if the probe is
lost.
These techniques do not work for TCP, because there is not a separate
length field or other mechanism to differentiate between padding and
real payload data. With TCP the only approach is to send additional
payload data in an over-sized segment. There are at least two
variants of this approach, discussed in section 10.1.
In a few cases there may no reasonable mechanisms to generate probes
within the Packetization Layer protocol itself. As a last resort it
may be possible to rely an an adjunct protocol, such as ICMP ECHO
(aka "ping"), to send probe packets. See section 10.3 for further
discussion of this approach.
7. Host Fragmentation
Packetization layers are encouraged to avoid sending messages that
will require fragmentation. (For the case against fragmentation, see
[14], [15]). However, entirely preventing fragmentation is not
always possible. Some packetization layers, such as a UDP
application outside the kernel, may be unable to change the size of
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messages it sends, resulting in datagram sizes that exceed the path
MTU.
IPv4 permitted such applications to send packets without the DF bit
set. Oversized packets without the DF bit set would be fragmented in
the network or sending host when they encountered a link with a MTU
smaller than the packet. In some case, packets could be fragmented
more than once if there were cascaded links with progressively
smaller MTUs. This approach is not recommended.
It is recommended that IPv4 implementations use a strategy that
mimics IPv6 functionality. When an application sends datagrams that
are larger than the known path MTU they should be fragmented to the
path MTU in the host IP layer even if they are smaller than the link
MTU of the first network hop directly attached to the host. The DF
bit should be set on the fragments, so they will not be fragmented
again in the network.
This technique will minimize future surprises as the Internet
migrates to IPv6. Otherwise, the potential exists for widely
deployed applications or services relying on IPv4 fragmentation in a
way that cannot be implemented in IPv6. At least one major operating
system already uses this strategy.
The ability to selectively transmit packets larger than the current
effective path MTU (but smaller than the link MTU) is required, to be
able to send probes generated by packetization layers participating
in PLPMTUD, and to facilitate diagnostic utilities.
Note that IP fragmentation divides data into packets, so it is
minimally a Packetization Layer. However, it does not have a
mechanism to detect lost packets, so it can not support a native
implementation of PLPMTUD. Fragmentation-based PLPMTUD requires an
adjunct protocol as described in section 10.3.
8. The Probing Method
This section describes the details of the MTU probing method,
including how to send probes and process error indications necessary
to search for the path MTU.
8.1. Packet size ranges
A packetization layer implementing PLPMTUD should keep three pieces
of state:
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search_low: The smallest available probe size, minus one.
search_high: The greatest available probe size.
eff_pmtu: The effective pmtu for this flow.
search_low eff_pmtu search_high
| | |
...------------------------->
non-probe size range
<-------------------------------------->
probe size range
Figure 1
When transmitting probes, the packetization layer will select the
probe size from within the range "(search_low, search_high]". When
transmitting non-probes, it may use sizes less than or equal to
eff_pmtu.
The eff_pmtu must be in the range "[search_low, search_high]". Note
that when probing upward eff_pmtu will equal search_low, but may
differ due to initial values, or ICMP PTB messages.
8.2. Selecting initial values
The initial value for search_high should be the largest possible
packet supported by the flow. This may be limited by the local
interface MTU, by a protocol mechanism such as the TCP MSS option, or
an intrinsic limit such as the protocol length field.
It is recommended that search_low be initially set to a value likely
to work over a large range of links. Given today's technologies, a
value of 512 bytes is likely to work. For IPv6 flows, a value of
1280 is appropriate. The initial value for search_low should be
configurable.
Properly functioning Path MTU discovery is critical to the robust and
efficient operation of the Internet. Any major change (as described
in this document) has the potential to be very disruptive if it
contains any errors or oversights. The selection of initial values
determines to what extent a PLPMTUD implementation's behavior differs
from classical PMTUD in cases where MTU discovery is not needed, or
where classical PMTUD is sufficient.
It may be desirable to configure hosts in such a way that PLPMTUD
only has an effect in cases where classical PMTUD fails. Setting
eff_pmtu equal to search_high and relying on black hole detection has
this effect. Using initial values of search_low = eff_pmtu =
search_high has the effect of effectively disabling PLPMTUD and
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relying only on classical PMTUD.
In some cases where it is known that classical PMTUD is likely to
fail, using a conservatively small initial eff_pmtu may produce
better results. Using a small initial eff_pmtu may have na impact on
protocol dynamics in all cases, but can result in much better
performance by avoiding the costly timeouts required for black hole
detection.
As appropriate initial values for PLPMTUD state variables may vary
not only per host but per path, configuration options for these
values in the route cache is desirable.
8.3. Selecting probe size
The probe may have a size anywhere in the "probe size range"
described above. However, a number of factors affect the selection
of an appropriate size. A simple strategy might be to do a binary
search halving the probe size range with each probe. However, for
some protocols, data in a lost probe may require retransmission,
making a failed probe more expensive than a successful probe. For
such protocols, a strategy using smaller probe sizes and "probing up"
may behave better. For many protocols, both at and above the
packetization layer, the benefit of increasing MTU sizes may follow a
step function such that it is not advantageous to probe within
certain regions at all.
As an optimization, it may be appropriate to probe at certain common
or expected MTU sizes; for example, 1500 bytes for standard Ethernet,
or 1500 bytes minus header sizes for tunnel protocols.
Some protocols may not even "choose" probe sizes. For protocols
which have certain natural data block sizes, an effective strategy
could be to simply treat blocks whose size falls in the probe size
range as a probe.
Each packetization layer must determine when probing is considered
converged; that is, when the probe size range is considered small
enough that further probing is no longer worth its cost. When it is
determined that searching has converged, a timer should be set for 5
minutes @@why. When the timer expires, search_high should be reset
to its initial value (described above) so that probing can resume.
This is so that if the path changes, and in increased path MTU is
available, then the flow will eventually be able to take advantage of
it to send larger packets.
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8.4. Probing preconditions
Before sending a probe, the flow must at least meet the following
conditions:
o The flow has no outstanding probes or losses.
o If the last probe failed or was inconclusive, then the probe
timeout has expired (see Section 8.6.2).
o The available window is greater than the probe size.
o For a protocol which uses in-band data for probing, enough data is
available to send the probe.
In order to allow loss detection mechanisms to be effective, some
protocols may require a probe plus a number of non-probe packet's
worth of available data and window space.
When not enough data is available to probe, the protocol may wish to
delay sending non-probes in order to accumulate enough data to send a
probe.
8.5. Conducting a probe
Once a probe size in the appropriate range has been selected, and the
above preconditions have been met, the packetization layer may
conduct a probe. To do so, it creates a probe packet such that its
size, including the outermost IP headers, is equal the probe size.
After sending the probe it awaits response, which may take the
following results:
Success: The probe is acknowledged as having been received by the
remote host.
Failure: A protocol mechanism indicates that the probe was lost, but
no packets in the leading or trailing window were lost.
Timeout failure: A protocol mechanism indicates that the probe was
lost, and no packets in the leading window were lost, but is
unable to determine if any packets in the trailing window were
lost. For example, loss is detected by a timeout, and go-back-n
retransmission is used.
Inconclusive: The probe was lost in addition to other packets in the
leading or trailing windows.
8.6. Response to probe results
When a probe has completed, the result should be processed as
follows, categorized by the probe's result type.
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8.6.1. Probe success
When the probe is delivered, this is an indication that the path MTU
is at least as large as the probe size. The packetization layer
should set search_low to the probe size, eff_pmtu to "max(eff_pmtu,
probe size)".
Note that if a flow's packets are routed via multiple paths, or over
a path with a non-deterministic MTU, delivery of a single probe
packet does not indicate that all packets of that size will be
delivered. To be robust in such a case, the packetization layer
should conduct MTU verification as described in section @@cite.
8.6.2. Probe failure
When only the probe is lost, this is treated as an indication that
the path MTU is smaller than the probe size. In this case alone, the
loss should not be interpreted as congestion signal.
In the absence of other indications, the packetization layer should
set search_high to the probe size minus one, and eff_pmtu to
"min(eff_pmtu, probe size)".
If an ICMP PTB message is received matching the probe packet, then
search_high and eff_pmtu may be set from the MTU value indicated in
the message. Note that the ICMP message may be received either
before or after the protocol loss indication.
A probe failure event is the one situation under which the
packetization layer is permitted not to treat loss as a congestion
signal. Because there is some small risk that suppressing congestion
control might have unanticipated consequences (even for one isolated
loss), it is required that probe failure events be less frequent than
the normal period for losses under standard congestion control.
Specifically after a probe failure event and suppressed congestion
control, PLPMTUD may not probe again until an interval which is
comparable to the expected interval between congestion control
events. This is required in section 4 and discussed further in
section @@@window. The simplest estimate of the interval to the next
congestion event is the same number of round trips as the current
congestion window in packets.
8.6.3. Probe timeout failure
If the loss was detected with a timeout and repaired with go-back-n
retransmission, then congestion window reduction will be necessary.
The relatively high price of a failed probe in this case may merit a
longer timeout. A timeout value of five times @@why? the non-timeout
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failure case is recommended.
8.6.4. Probe inconclusive
The presence of other losses near the loss of the probe may indicate
that the probe was lost due to congestion rather than because of an
MTU limitation. In this case it is appropriate to update no state,
and simply probe again when the probing preconditions are met; i.e.,
when no recent losses have been observed. At this point, it is
particularly appropriate to re-probe since the flow's congestion
window will be at its lowest point, minimizing the probability of
congestive losses.
8.7. Full stop timeout
Under all conditions a full stop timeout (also known as a "persistent
timeout" in other documents) should be taken as an indication of some
significantly disruptive event in the network, such as a router
failure or a routing change to a path with a smaller MTU. For TCP,
this occurs when the R1 timeout threshold described by [8] expires.
If there is a full stop timeout and there was not an ICMP message
indicating a reason (PTB, Net unreachable, etc, or the ICMP messages
was ignored for some reason), the suggested first recovery action is
to treat this as a detected black hole as described in [10].
The response to a detected black hole should be to set search_low to
its initial value, and set eff_pmtu to search_low. Upon further
successive timeouts, search_low and eff_pmtu should be halved, with a
lower bound of 68 bytes for IPv4 and 1280 bytes for IPv6.
8.8. MTU verification
It is possible for a flow to simultaneously traverse multiple paths,
but it will only be able to keep a single path representation for the
flow. If in such a case the paths have different MTUs, storing the
minimum MTU of all paths in the flow's path representation will
result in correct, though sub-optimal behavior. If ICMP PTB messages
are delivered, then classical PMTUD will work correctly in this
situation.
However, if ICMP is not delivered, PLPMTUD will be relied upon and
may fail because its requirement that links MUST NOT deliver packets
larger than their MTU is effectively broken. A probe with a size
greater than the minimum but smaller than the maximum of the path
MTUs may be successful. However, upon raising the flow's effective
PMTU, the loss rate may significantly increase. The flow may still
make progress, but the resultant loss rate may be unacceptable. For
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example, when using two-way round-robin striping, 50% of full-sized
packets would be lost.
Striping in this manner is often operationally undesirable (for
example, due to packet reordering), and is usually avoided by hashing
flows to a single path. However, to increase robustness an
implementation should implement some form of MTU verification, such
that if increasing eff_pmtu results in a sharp increase in loss rate,
it will fall back to using a lower MTU.
A recommended strategy would be that when using a new value for
eff_pmtu, to save the old value. If loss rate rises above a certain
threshold for a period of time (for example, loss rate is higher than
10% over multiple RTO intervals), then the new MTU is considered
incorrect. The saved value of eff_pmtu should be restored, and
search_high reduced in the same manner as in a probe failure.
9. Diagnostic Interface
All implementations MUST include facilities for MTU discovery
diagnostic tools that implement PLPMTUD or other MTU discovery
algorithms in user mode without help or interference by the PMTUD
algorithm present in the operating system. This requires a mechanism
where a diagnostic application can send packets that are larger than
the operating system's notion of the current path MTU and for the
diagnostic application to collect any resulting ICMP PTB messages or
other ICMP messages. For IPv4, the diagnostic application must be
able to set the DF bit.
At this time nearly all operating systems support two modes for
sending UDP datagrams: one which silently fragments packets that are
too large, and another that rejects packets that are too large.
Neither of these modes are suitable for efficiently diagnosing
problems with MTU discovery, such as routers that return ICMP PTB
messages containing incorrect size information.
10. Specific Packetization Layers
This section discusses specific implementation details for different
protocols that can be used as Packetization Layer protocols. All
Packetization Layer protocols must consider all of the issues
discussed in section Section 6. For most protocols it is self
evident how to address many of these issues. It is hoped that the
protocols described here will be sufficient illustration for
implementors to adapt other protocols.
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10.1. Probing method using TCP
TCP has no mechanism that could be used to distinguish between real
application data and some other form of padding that might be used to
fill out probe packets. Therefore, TCP must generate probes by
sending oversized segments that are carrying real data from upper
layers. There are two approaches that TCP might use to minimize
overhead associated with the probing sequence.
A TCP implementation of PLPMTUD can elect to send subsequent segments
overlapping the probe as though the probe segment was not oversized.
This has the advantage that TCP only needs to retransmit one segment
at the current MTU to recover from failed probes. However the
duplicate data in the probe does consume network resources and will
cause duplicate acknowledgments. It is important that these extra
duplicate acknowledgments not trigger Fast Retransmit. This can be
guaranteed by limiting the largest probe segment size to twice the
current segment size (causing at most 1 duplicate acknowledgment) or
three times the current segment size (causing at most 2 duplicate
acknowledgments).
The other approach is to send non-overlapping segments following the
probe. Although this is cleaner from a protocol architecture
standpoint it clashes with many of the optimizations used to improve
the efficiency of data motion within many operating systems. In
particular many implementations divide the data into segments and
pre-compute checksums as the data is copied out of application
buffers. In these implementations it can be relatively expensive to
adjust segment boundaries after the data is already queued.
10.2. Probing method using SCTP
In the SCTP protocol [7][13] the application writes messages to SCTP
and SCTP "chunkifies" them into smaller pieces suitable for
transmission through the network. Once a message has been
chunkified, they are assigned Transmission Sequence Numbers (TSNs).
Once some TSNs have been transmitted SCTP can not change the chunk
sizes. SCTP multi-path support normally requires SCTP to chunkify
its messages to fit the smallest PMTU of all paths. Although not
required, implementations may bundle multiple data chunks together to
make larger IP packets to send on paths with a larger PMTU. Note
that SCTP must independently probe the PMTU on each path to the peer.
The recommended method for generating probes is to add a chunk
consisting only of padding to an SCTP message. There are two methods
to implement this padding.
In method 1, the message is padded with an SCTP heart beat (HB), of
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the necessary size to construct an IP packet the desired probe size.
The peer SCTP implementation will acknowledge a successful probe
without delay by returning the same Heartbeat as a HEARTBEAT-ACK.
This method is fully compatible with current SCTP standards and
implementations, but is exposed to MTU limitation on the return path,
which might cause the HEARTBEAT-ACK to be lost.
In method 2, a new "PAD" chunk type would have to be defined. This
chunk would be silently discarded by the peer. The PAD chunk could
be attached to another message (either a minimum length HB or other
application data which will be acknowledged by the peer) to build a
probe packet. The default action for an unknown chunk type in the
range 128 to 190, (high bits = 10 ) is to "Skip this chunk and
continue processing" [RFC2960] - exactly the required behavior for a
PAD chunk. Any currently unused type in this range will work for a
PAD chunk type. This method is fully compatible with all current
SCTP implementations, but requires adding a new type to the current
standards. It has the advantage that restrictions due to the return
path MTU are not applied to the forward path.
10.3. Probing method using IP fragmentation
As mentioned in section 7, datagram protocols (such as UDP) might
rely on IP fragmentation as a packetization layer. However,
implementing PLPMTUD with IP fragmentation is problematic because the
IP layer has no mechanism to determine if the packets are ultimately
delivered properly to the far node, without participation by the
application.
To support IP fragmentation as a packetization layer under an
unmodified application, we propose the use of an adjunct MTU
measurement protocol (ICMP ECHO) and a separate path MTU discovery
daemon (described here) to perform PLPMTUD and update the stored path
MTU information.
For IP fragmentation the initial MTU should be selected as described
in section 8.2, except with a separate global control for the default
initial MTU for connectionless protocols. Since connectionless
protocols may not keep enough state to effectively diagnose MTU black
holes, it would be more robust to error on the side of using too
small of an initial MTU (e.g. 1kBytes or less) prior to initiating
probing of the path to measure the MTU.
Since many protocols that rely on IP fragmentation are
connectionless, there is an additional problem with the path
information cache: there are no events corresponding to connection
establishment and tear-down to use to manage the cache itself. If
there is no entry in the path information cache for a particular
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packet being transmitted, it uses an immutable cache entry for the
"default path", which has a MTU that is fixed at the initial value.
A new path cache entry is not created until there is an attempt to
set the MTU.
The path MTU discovery daemon should be triggered as a side effect of
IP fragmentation. Once the number of fragmented datagrams via any
particular path reaches some configurable threshold (say 5
datagrams), the daemon can start probing the path with ICMP ECHO
packets. These probes must use the diagnostic interface described in
section 9 and have DF set. The daemon can implement all of the
PLPMTUD probe sequence and search strategy, collect all of the ICMP
responses (ECHO REPLY, ICMP PTB, etc) and only the saved PTB in the
path information cache in the IP layer.
Alternatively, most of the PLPMTUD state machinery can be implemented
within the path information cache in the IP layer, which can
specifically invoke the path MTU discovery daemon to perform
specified measurements on specific paths and report the results back
to the IP layer.
Using ICMP ECHO to measure the MTU has a number of potential
robustness problems. Note that the most likely failures are due to
losses unrelated to MTU (e.g. nodes that discriminate on the basis of
protocol type). These non-MTU-related losses can prevent PLPMTUD
from raising the MTU, forcing the packetization protocol to use a
smaller MTU than necessary. Since these failures are not likely to
cause interoperability problems they are relatively benign.
However there does exist other more serious failure modes, such as
layer 3 or 4 routers choosing different paths for different protocol
types or sessions. In such environments, adjunct protocols may
experience different MTUs than the primary protocol. If the adjunct
protocol has a larger MTU than the primary protocol, PLPMTUD will
select a non-functional MTU. This does not seem to be a likely
situation.
10.4. Probing method using applications
The disadvantages of probing with ICMP ECHO can be overcome by
implementing the path MTU discovery daemon within the application
itself, using the application's own protocol.
The application must have some suitable method for generating probes.
The ideal situation is a lightweight echo function, that confirms
message delivery, plus a mechanism for padding the messages out to
the desired MTU, such that the padding is not echoed. This
combination (akin to the SCTP HB plus PAD) is preferred because you
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can send large probes that cause small acknowledgments. For
protocols that can not implement these messages directly there are
often alternate methods for generating probes. For example, the
protocol may have a variable length echo (that measures both the
forward and return path) or if there is no echo function, there may
be a way to add padding to regular messages carrying real application
data. There may also be other ways to generate probes. As a last
resort, it may be feasible to extend the protocol with new message
types to support MTU discovery.
Probing within an application introduces one new issue: many
applications do not currently concern themselves with MTU and rely on
IP fragmentation to deliver datagrams that just happen to be larger
than the path MTU. PLPMTUD requires that the protocol be able to
send probes that are larger than the IP layer's current notion of the
path MTU, but are marked not to be fragmented. This requires an
alternate method for sending these datagrams.
As with ICMP MTU probing, there is considerable flexibility in how
the PLPMTUD algorithms can be divided between the Application and the
path information cache.
Some applications send large datagrams no matter what the link size,
and rely on IP fragmentation to deliver the datagrams. It has been
known for a long time that this has some undesirable consequences
[@@harm1]. Recently it has come to light that IPv4 fragmentation is
not sufficiently robust for general use in today's Internet. The 16-
bit IP identification field is not large enough to prevent frequent
misassociated IP fragments and the TCP and UDP checksums are
insufficient to prevent the resulting corrupted data from being
delivered to higher protocol layers. [@@harm2]
None the less, there are a number of higher layer protocols, such as
NFS [@@NFS] which use IP fragmentation as a mechanism to reduce CPU
load. NFS typically sends fragmented 8k Byte datagram's over all
link types, no matter what the link MTU. The other common case, in
which the application wants to use the largest possible datagram that
fits within the MTU is most easily treated as a special case of the
fragmenting case.
11. References
11.1. Normative references
[1] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, September 1981.
[2] Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery", RFC 1191,
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November 1990.
[3] McCann, J., Deering, S., and J. Mogul, "Path MTU Discovery for
IP version 6", RFC 1981, August 1996.
[4] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[5] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6)
Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
[6] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC 793,
September 1981.
[7] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Morneault, K., Sharp, C., Schwarzbauer,
H., Taylor, T., Rytina, I., Kalla, M., Zhang, L., and V. Paxson,
"Stream Control Transmission Protocol", RFC 2960, October 2000.
[8] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Communication
Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.
11.2. Informative references
[9] Partridge, C., "Using the Flow Label Field in IPv6", RFC 1809,
June 1995.
[10] Lahey, K., "TCP Problems with Path MTU Discovery", RFC 2923,
September 2000.
[11] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.
[12] Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles", BCP 41, RFC 2914,
September 2000.
[13] Stewart, R., "Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)
Implementors Guide", draft-ietf-tsvwg-sctpimpguide-10 (work in
progress), December 2003.
[14] Kent, C. and J. Mogul, "Fragmentation considered harmful",
Proc. SIGCOMM '87 vol. 17, No. 5, October 1987.
[15] Mathis, M., Heffner, J., and B. Chandler, "Fragmentation
Considered Very Harmful", draft-mathis-frag-harmful-00 (work in
progress), July 2004.
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Appendix A. Security Considerations
Under all conditions the PLPMTUD procedure described in this document
is at least as secure as the current standard path MTU discovery
procedures described in RFC 1191 [2] and RFC 1981 [3].
Since this algorithm is designed for robust operation without any
ICMP (or other messages from the network), PLPMTUD could be
configured to ignore all ICMP messages (globally or on a per
application basis). In this configuration, it cannot be attacked
unless the attacker can identify and selectively cause probe packets
to be lost.
Appendix B. IANA Considerations
None.
Appendix C. Acknowledgements
Many ideas and even some of the text come directly from RFC1191 and
RFC1981.
Many people made significant contributions to this document,
including: Randall Stewart for SCTP text, Michael Richardson for
material from an earlier ID on tunnels that ignore DF, Stanislav
Shalunov for the idea that pure PLPMTUD parallels congestion control,
and Matt Zekauskas for maintaining focus during the meetings. Thanks
to the early implementors: Kevin Lahey, John Heffner and Rao Shoaib
who provided concrete feedback on weaknesses in earlier drafts.
Thanks also to all of the people who made constructive comments in
the working group meetings and on the mailing list. I am sure I have
missed many deserving people.
Matt Mathis and John Heffner are supported in this work by a grant
from Cisco Systems, Inc.
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Authors' Addresses
Matt Mathis
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
4400 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
US
Phone: 412-268-3319
Email: mathis@psc.edu
John W. Heffner
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
4400 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
US
Phone: 412-268-2329
Email: jheffner@psc.edu
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