diff --git a/_posts/2018-07-13-about-mtu.md b/_posts/2018-07-13-about-mtu.md index 52053a2..fbf27f8 100644 --- a/_posts/2018-07-13-about-mtu.md +++ b/_posts/2018-07-13-about-mtu.md @@ -16,13 +16,12 @@ protocols. So you might have been surprised to see an interface MTU as high as In fact, this is not a mistake. It is very deliberate. The MTU is a configurable option which determines how big a packet should be -before you should break out into a new packet. With every packet, the IP headers -and other possible headers (i.e. from TCP or UDP) have to be repeated. In -addition to that, the operating system maintains a link MTU setting for each -network adapter - effectively a value that says "packets smaller than this -number of bytes are safe to send on this link in one piece". Any larger than -that and the operating system will have to fragment the packet down into smaller -ones before sending out onto the wire. +before you should break out into a new packet. In addition to that, the +operating system maintains a link MTU setting for each network adapter - +effectively a value that says "packets equal to or smaller than this number of +bytes are safe to send on this link in one piece". Any larger than that and the +operating system will have to fragment the packet down into smaller ones before +sending out onto the wire. With a smaller MTU, you will be forced to re-send the IP headers (and possibly other headers) along with every single packet. Those are not only wasted bytes