the Fragmentable Part of the original packet.

               A Fragment Offset containing the offset of the fragment,
               in 8-octet units, relative to the start of the
               Fragmentable Part of the original packet.  The Fragment
               Offset of the first ("leftmost") fragment is 0.

               An M flag value of 0 if the fragment is the last
               ("rightmost") one, else an M flag value of 1.

               The Identification value generated for the original
               packet.

      (3) The fragment itself.

   The lengths of the fragments must be chosen such that the resulting
   fragment packets fit within the MTU of the path to the packets'
   destination(s).




 
RFC 2460                   IPv6 Specification              December 1998


   At the destination, fragment packets are reassembled into their
   original, unfragmented form, as illustrated:

   reassembled original packet:

   +------------------+----------------------//------------------------+
   |  Unfragmentable  |                 Fragmentable                   |
   |       Part       |                     Part                       |
   +------------------+----------------------//------------------------+

   The following rules govern reassembly:

      An original packet is reassembled only from fragment packets that
      have the same Source Address, Destination Address, and Fragment
      Identification.

      The Unfragmentable Part of the reassembled packet consists of all
      headers up to, but not including, the Fragment header of the first
      fragment packet (that is, the packet whose Fragment Offset is
      zero), with the following two changes:

         The Next Header field of the last header of the Unfragmentable
         Part is obtained from the Next Header field of the first
         fragment's Fragment header.

         The Payload Length of the reassembled packet is computed from
         the length of the Unfragmentable Part and the length and offset
         of the last fragment.  For example, a formula for computing the
         Payload Length of the reassembled original packet is:

           PL.orig = PL.first - FL.first - 8 + (8 * FO.last) + FL.last

           where
           PL.orig  = Payload Length field of reassembled packet.
           PL.first = Payload Length field of first fragment packet.
           FL.first = length of fragment following Fragment header of
                      first fragment packet.
           FO.last  = Fragment Offset field of Fragment header of
                      last fragment packet.
           FL.last  = length of fragment following Fragment header of
                      last fragment packet.

      The Fragmentable Part of the reassembled packet is constructed
      from the fragments following the Fragment headers in each of the
      fragment packets.  The length of each fragment is computed by
      subtracting from the packet's Payload Length the length of the






 
RFC 2460                   IPv6 Specification              December 1998


      headers between the IPv6 header and fragment itself; its relative
      position in Fragmentable Part is computed from its Fragment Offset
      value.

      The Fragment header is not present in the final, reassembled
      packet.

   The following error conditions may arise when reassembling fragmented
   packets:

      If insufficient fragments are received to complete reassembly of a
      packet within 60 seconds of the reception of the first-arriving
      fragment of that packet, reassembly of that packet must be
      abandoned and all the fragments that have been received for that
      packet must be discarded.  If the first fragment (i.e., the one
      with a Fragment Offset of zero) has been received, an ICMP Time
      Exceeded -- Fragment Reassembly Time Exceeded message should be
      sent to the source of that fragment.