From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 6 23:45:14 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D8F416A41F for ; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:45:14 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ras@overlord.e-gerbil.net) Received: from overlord.e-gerbil.net (e-gerbil.net [69.31.1.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EAB6D43D46 for ; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:45:13 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ras@overlord.e-gerbil.net) Received: from overlord.e-gerbil.net (ras@localhost.e-gerbil.net [127.0.0.1]) by overlord.e-gerbil.net (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id k06NjBgH094904; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 18:45:11 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from ras@overlord.e-gerbil.net) Received: (from ras@localhost) by overlord.e-gerbil.net (8.13.3/8.13.3/Submit) id k06NjBOZ094903; Fri, 6 Jan 2006 18:45:11 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from ras) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 18:45:11 -0500 From: Richard A Steenbergen To: kamal kc , freebsd Message-ID: <20060106234511.GY826@overlord.e-gerbil.net> References: <20060106071807.87771.qmail@web30008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20060106180207.GE69162@funkthat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060106180207.GE69162@funkthat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6i Cc: Subject: Re: increasing the ethernet MTU greater than 1500 (1502) X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 23:45:14 -0000 On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 10:02:07AM -0800, John-Mark Gurney wrote: > Nope, for pre-gige, only 1500 MTU is supported... This was extended > slightly to support vlan tagging, but I believe many of the drivers to > magic behind the scenes to know when the vlan tagged packets are comming, > and let them through... You could look at the drivers into fixing this.. > If you have a good gige card, you can go to 9000 MTU and beyond... > > there is still the problem of the receiving station.. (and all switches, > routers inbetween)... They must be able to support the larger MTU > packet, otherwise, it coulde get dropped from the wire as too long of > a packet... Technically speaking, the problem was not fixed by GigE or even 10GigE. The wonderful folks over at the IEEE feel there is no need to bring us out of the ethernet networking dark ages by defining any kind of standards for anything > 1500 bytes. We're left with a bunch of vendors who are each trying to do the right thing by picking random sizes ranging from 1518 (stock + 4 bytes for a single .1q tag) to 16384, but there are no real standards, no mechanisms for ensuring interoperability, no protocols for negotiating MTUs between networks, etc. GigE and beyond is statistically more likely to support some kind of jumbo frame just because it is newer, but the only way to find out is to ask the vendor/manufacturer. Lots of newer FastE cards support jumbos or some kind of mini jumbo too. There are still plenty of NICs and switches out there with no or very half-ass jumbo support though. -- Richard A Steenbergen http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)