User talk:Kumble2904

Like you said,: "Atleast size given in the below table is NOT a Maximum Transmission Unit limit, but would be minimum transmission unit limit. This table may be misleading!"

The "At least" values given in the table refer to the requirements that a receiver is expected to be able to handle at least as long datagrams. The actual MTU for IPv4 packets is 65,535 bytes (because that is the Length field in the IPv4 header). The largest IPv4 packet that any receiving host is required to be able to reassemble is 576 bytes, but most modern hosts handle much larger packets.

From RFC 791, page 24: Every internet destination must be able to receive a datagram of 576 octets either in one piece or in fragments to be reassembled.

The actual maximum payload size for IPv6 packets is 4,294,967,295 (2^32−1) octets. This is possible with the use of jumbograms. Jumbograms may improve performance over high-MTU links. The use of jumbograms is indicated by the Jumbo Payload Option header. Even though IPv6 has such a huge MTU, the largest IPv6 packet that any receiving host is ABSOLUTELY required to be able to reassemble is 1280 bytes. A host might be able to reassemble a larger segment, but it absolutely must be able to reassemble "AT LEAST" a 1280 datagram.

Anyway, MTU is essentially a Data Link Layer concept and restriction, and maybe Network layer "MTUs" should not even be listed in this table. I disagree with calling anything above Data Link layer restrictions as MTUs. So for IP,TCP,UDP maybe "maximum payload size" is a better phrase.