----- Original Message ----- From: <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu>
Good point. It's been a long day, I wasn't QUITE thinking straight. Another respondent commented that Windows98 apparently nails an MTU of 576 on a dialup - Apparently I've not run into any Windows98 people setting their clocks off the server I got the numbers from. Also, he said that ADSL uses just under 1500. I don't have a Win98 or ADSL handy to check. ;)
Small MTUs at the ends don't matter. If I dial up with a Windows 98 machine and negotiate an MTU of 576 bytes, the MSS will be set accordingly in the TCP SYN and SYN ACK frames that I send, and the far end will start with 576 byte frames. No PMTU Discovery required. Same thing with ADSL or end-user VPN stuff. PMTU Discovery is important when you have larger MTUs on the ends and small MTUs in the middle. For example, a tunnel (VPN or otherwise) between two routers or VPN servers, for a WAN link with a small MTU, or ... It's a real problem, and the Load Balancer manufacturers need to handle the ICMPs properly. But it's not so bad that everyone with a 576 byte Windwos 98 PPP dial-up would be unable to reach Load Balanced sites. (Arguably, it would be better if it were a problem for such users, because that would guarantee that the problem would get fixed quickly ...) -- Brett