{"id":287,"date":"2020-11-29T18:56:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T23:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/?post_type=term&p=287"},"modified":"2021-07-27T08:08:33","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T12:08:33","slug":"maximum-transmission-unit-mtu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/maximum-transmission-unit-mtu-005618\/","title":{"rendered":"Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In network communications, the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is the largest network-layer transmission unit that can fit into a Link Layer data frame. This can also be stated as being the largest data segment a network device is able to receive.<\/p>\n

Per RFC2460<\/a>; an MTU can be configurable via the Link Layer but must be at least 1280 octets and no more than 1500 octets. An “octet” is a series of 8 bits or, as it’s more commonly known, a\u00a0byte<\/em>. Network traffic is measured in bits, however, and therefore the octet mnemonic often takes precedence.<\/p>\n

This is modeled by various protocol layer stacks such as OSI and\/or TCP\/IP protocol layer stacks<\/a>. The MTU consists of application layer data + transport layer headers + network layer headers. While not\u00a0completely<\/em> defined by the maximum link-layer frame size, the MTU cannot exceed it.<\/p>\n

\"mss
The MTU reflects the largest data segment a network can facilitate the transfer of.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When a packet size exceeds the MTU, it must be\u00a0fragmented<\/em> prior to network transmission which, in turn, necessitates re-assembly upon receipt. While this practice is possible, it is discouraged and applications are suggested to continually adjust packet sizing to meet calculated network MTU.<\/p>\n

The MTU is also used as a relative size by which higher-layer protocols, such as TCP, use to create their structures. For example, TCP’s congestion control algorithm<\/a> has a Slow Start state in which the congestion window<\/a> is initially set to 1 x MSS (which is calculated to be 40 bits smaller, relative to the MTU).<\/p>\n

Note: The MSS is 60 bits smaller during IPV6 usage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In network communications, the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is the largest network-layer transmission unit that can fit into a Link Layer data frame. This can also be stated as being the largest data segment a network device is able to receive. Per RFC2460; an MTU can be configurable via the Link Layer but must be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,260],"tags":[84,461,99,85,133,6,132],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}