IPv4 Reassembly Errors at High Data Rates
RFC 4963, “IPv4 Reassembly Errors at High Data Rates”, is an Informational document published in July 2007 by J. Heffner, M. Mathis, B. Chandler. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.
Abstract
IPv4 fragmentation is not sufficiently robust for use under some conditions in today's Internet. At high data rates, the 16-bit IP identification field is not large enough to prevent frequent incorrectly assembled IP fragments, and the TCP and UDP checksums are insufficient to prevent the resulting corrupted datagrams from being delivered to higher protocol layers. This note describes some easily reproduced experiments demonstrating the problem, and discusses some of the operational implications of these observations. This memo provides information for the Internet community.
What “Informational” means
Published for the general information of the community. It does not define an IETF standard and carries no standards-track status.
The canonical text of RFC 4963 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.
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