If the Interface MTU field is larger than can be accepted without
fragmentation, then the packet is rejected. No acknowledgement is sent and
the behavior after that is dependent on the vendor. Usually it results in
neighbors getting stuck in Exchange or ExStart. In any case, the adjacency
will never form.

This particular little hole is (unfortunately) due to a fault in OSPF itself
since no acknowledgement and situational handling was specified.

As a CCIE friend of mine said, "However, a vendor could choose to implement
something that, after getting no response to DD packets, would decrease the
packet size, even sending a really tiny DD packet to continue negotiations
and receive DD from the other router, learning its MTU, then adjusting to
that.  I *think* that would work."  - I personally am not aware of any
vendors that implement anything like this

Here's a good discussion of it:
http://www.riverstonenet.com/support/ospf/stuckexstart.htm#_Toc515894155

There's also a doc on Cisco about it:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/tk480/technologies_tech_note09186a0080093f0d.shtml

HTH,
Karen

"A rose by any other name is Cisco specific terminology..."

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/15/2003 at 7:29 AM Zsombor Papp wrote:

>At 09:48 AM 7/15/2003 +0000, Karen E Young wrote:
>>KY: According to the RFC (page 99) "If the Interface MTU field in the
>>Database Description packet indicates an IP datagram size that is larger
>>than the router can accept on the receiving interface without
>fragmentation,
>>the Database Description packet is rejected."
>>
>>With this in mind the only time fragmentation should occur is when a
>virtual
>>link is used since the MTU of a virtual link is set to "0".
>
>The "Interface MTU" field describes the MTU of the sending interface, not 
>the size of the DD packet. Just because the MTU of the sending router is 
>smaller than or equal to that of the receiving router, it doesn't follow 
>that fragmentation can't occur. Fragmentation occurs because the data (ie. 
>the DD packet) to be sent is larger than the MTU of the *sending* router.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Zsombor




Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=72377&t=72024
--------------------------------------------------
FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html
Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to