nanog mailing list archives

Re: [NANOG] Microsoft.com PMTUD black hole?


From: "Tomas L. Byrnes" <tomb () byrneit net>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 12:43:49 -0700

I'm not sure what the issue is here. 

Just about every modern firewall I've used has an option to enable PMTU
on interfaces, while blocking all other ICMP.

Is MS not running something manufactured in the last 10 years at their
perimeter?


-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Anderson/FSR [mailto:nathana () fsr com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 12:39 PM
To: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Cc: nanog () merit edu
Subject: Re: [NANOG] Microsoft.com PMTUD black hole?

Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:

The usual case where you get screwed over is when the 
router trying to 
toss the ICMP FRAG NEEDED is *behind* the ICMP-munching 
firewall.  And 
in case (2), you still can't assume that path MTU == local MTU, 
because your local MTU is likely 1500, and the fragging 
router often 
trying to stuff your 1500 byte packet down an PPPoE tunnel 
that's got an MTU of 1492....

Yes, but my point was precisely that one OR the other side (server OR
client) is going to NOT have the ICMP-munching firewall in 
between itself and the "RITM" as I have affectionately been 
calling it (although it is definitely possible that there are 
two ICMP-munchers on either side of the RITM).

And case #2 is exactly what is occurring right now _anyway_: 
hosts assume that path MTU == local MTU even if there is 
already an active PMTU cache entry from a recent earlier 
communication with the remote host.  So I don't see how 
making that assumption _after_ making an honest attempt at 
actively determining whether or not it is actually the case 
is any more broken than they way things are already being done.

The problem is that, as I realized at the end of the message 
you quoted, there are potentially multiple paths between the 
same two hosts, and the path that the packet takes in one 
direction is not guaranteed to be the same path that the 
packet takes in the opposite direction.

--
Nathan Anderson
First Step Internet, LLC
nathana () fsr com

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