At 2:52 PM -0500 12/16/96, Mike Leber wrote:
On Sun, 15 Dec 1996, Forrest W. Christian wrote: [stuff cut] The loss is caused by atleast three things:
* ICMP packets are dropped by busy routers
Many routers drop ICMP packets (ping, traceroute) when busy, or alternate dropping ICMP packets. I know that this behavior occurs when the packets are directed to the specific router, I am not sure if this every occurs for packets passing through. The standby tool ping needs a more reliable replacement for testing end to end packet loss.
in general the router isn't going to treat one protocol (i.e. protocols running over IP (TCP, UDP, ICMP) differently when the packets are passing through the router - it just looks at the header and forwards. ciscos do handle pings for which the router itself is the destination at a lower priority than packets going through the box. I'll leave the discussions as to whether ping is adequate or not for another time.... [more stuff cut] dave