RE: Small TCP packets == very large overhead == DoS?

From: David LeBlanc (dleblancat_private)
Date: Tue Jul 10 2001 - 01:04:36 PDT

  • Next message: John Kristoff: "Re: Small TCP packets == very large overhead == DoS?"

    > From: Darren Reed [mailto:avalonat_private]
    
    > In some mail from Russ, sie said:
    
    > I think some people are not understanding the difference between the
    > TCP MSS and IP's MTU.  Either that or both you and David LeBlanc are
    > grasping at straws in order to make WindowsNT look better ;)
    
    I understand that difference. I'm not grasping at straws, I'm just wrong.
    Ooops. This happens occasionally.
    
    <struggles to get foot out of mouth...>
    
    > MTU and Path MTU (PMTU) discovery are not the same as TCP's
    > MSS but they
    > can and do impact it.
    
    Understood. I was hoping that if you turned off PMTU discovery, that it
    would also ignore MSS and just send default sized packets. Unfortunately, I
    don't think that's the case. Doh!
    
    > Given all of the above, the suggestion both you and David LeBlanc made
    > that Windows fixed things at a default of 576 when PMTU discovery was
    > enabled is not true and I proved this in testing.
    
    OK, OK, you win.
    
    I'm sure you meant to write: "when PMTU discovery was DISabled"
    
    > and so on.  Essentially, on both of those platforms all it does is
    > control whether the "don't fragment" bit (0x4000) is set in the IP
    > offset field.
    
    Actually, a bit more than that - it also means that it drops the rest of the
    PMTU discovery process and uses a default value, apparently unless the
    client specifies something else.
    
    <falls back, punts...>
    >I get the same lack of an
    > answer on how to set a minimum acceptable MSS now as I did then.
    
    I'll see what I can come up with.
    



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