From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "David S. Miller" Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH] "strict" ipv4 reassembly Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 10:49:47 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <20050517.104947.112621738.davem@davemloft.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev@oss.sgi.com Return-path: To: akepner@sgi.com In-Reply-To: Sender: netdev-bounce@oss.sgi.com Errors-to: netdev-bounce@oss.sgi.com List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org From: Arthur Kepner Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 09:18:26 -0700 (PDT) > 1) Fragments must arrive in order (or in reverse order) - > out of order fragments are dropped. Even the most simplistic flow over the real internet can get slight packet reordering. Heck, reordering happens on SMP on any network. IP is supposed to be resilient to side effects of network topology, and one such common side effect is packet reordering. It's common, it's fine, and the networking stack deals with it gracefully. Strict reassembly does not. Sure it's off by default, but isn't it a better idea to use NFS over TCP instead? Decreasing ipfrag_time is also not an option, because then you break fragmentation for packet radio folks :-)