Network Working Group                                           J. Mogul
Request for Comments: 1191                                        DECWRL
Obsoletes: RFC 1063                                           S. Deering
                                                     Stanford University
                                                           November 1990

                           Path MTU Discovery


Status of this Memo

   This RFC specifies a protocol on the IAB Standards Track for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB
   Official Protocol Standards" for the standardization state and status
   of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.


                           Table of Contents

       Status of this Memo                                             1
       Abstract                                                        2
       Acknowledgements                                                2
       1. Introduction                                                 2
       2. Protocol overview                                            3
       3. Host specification                                           4
           3.1. TCP MSS Option                                         5
       4. Router specification                                         6
       5. Host processing of old-style messages                        7
       6. Host implementation                                          8
           6.1. Layering                                               9
           6.2. Storing PMTU information                              10
           6.3. Purging stale PMTU information                        11
           6.4. TCP layer actions                                     13
           6.5. Issues for other transport protocols                  14
           6.6. Management interface                                  15
       7. Likely values for Path MTUs                                 15
           7.1. A better way to detect PMTU increases                 16
       8. Security considerations                                     18
       References                                                     18
       Authors' Addresses                                             19


                             List of Tables

       Table 7-1:   Common MTUs in the Internet                       17






Mogul & Deering                                                 [page 1]
 

RFC 1191                   Path MTU Discovery              November 1990




Abstract

   This memo describes a technique for dynamically discovering the
   maximum transmission unit (MTU) of an arbitrary internet path.  It
   specifies a small change to the way routers generate one type of ICMP
   message.  For a path that passes through a router that has not been
   so changed, this technique might not discover the correct Path MTU,
   but it will always choose a Path MTU as accurate as, and in many
   cases more accurate than, the Path MTU that would be chosen by
   current practice.


Acknowledgements

   This proposal is a product of the IETF MTU Discovery Working Group.

   The mechanism proposed here was first suggested by Geof Cooper [2],
   who in two short paragraphs set out all the basic ideas that took the
   Working Group months to reinvent.


1. Introduction

   When one IP host has a large amount of data to send to another host,
   the data is transmitted as a series of IP datagrams.  It is usually
   preferable that these datagrams be of the largest size that does not
   require fragmentation anywhere along the path from the source to the
   destination.  (For the case against fragmentation, see [5].)  This
   datagram size is referred to as the Path MTU (PMTU), and it is equal
   to the minimum of the MTUs of each hop in the path.  A shortcoming of
   the current Internet protocol suite is the lack of a standard
   mechanism for a host to discover the PMTU of an arbitrary path.

          Note: The Path MTU is what in [1] is called the "Effective MTU
          for sending" (EMTU_S).  A PMTU is associated with a path,
          which is a particular combination of IP source and destination