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Ethernet MTU size 1500 - Max Frame size 1518 (1522)

kfarrington
Level 3
Level 3

Hi Guys,

All routers and switches are set to 1500 byte MTUs. With the Ethernet header the frame maximum bigger than this.

If a router received a frame of 1518 (max payload 1500 + ethernet header) does the router fragment this packet?

Thx

Ken

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Giuseppe Larosa
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hello Ken,

the ip MTU is set to 1500 byte this implies an ethernet frame of size 1500+18 can go through.

The router will receive it correctly and will extract the ip packet inside the frame and will forward it

besides this, ethernet frames cannot be fragmented.

Problems can arise with MPLS, double vlan tagging (q in q) that can add more overhead if this happens the error counters of type giants or log messages should be seen.

This can require some tuning on MTU on routers and lan switches.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

View solution in original post

2 Replies 2

Giuseppe Larosa
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hello Ken,

the ip MTU is set to 1500 byte this implies an ethernet frame of size 1500+18 can go through.

The router will receive it correctly and will extract the ip packet inside the frame and will forward it

besides this, ethernet frames cannot be fragmented.

Problems can arise with MPLS, double vlan tagging (q in q) that can add more overhead if this happens the error counters of type giants or log messages should be seen.

This can require some tuning on MTU on routers and lan switches.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

Hey Mr G :)

Many thx indeed.

Perfect.

Kind regards,

Ken

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