It appeared to be really complicated to find relative information about sizes of transmission units in different levels of TCP/IP stack and completely impossible to find a united chart with their comparison. So, here it is.
| Layer |
Protocol |
Header Size |
Recommended size with header included without protocol extensions, ensuring no segmentation on all underlying layers |
Maximum size of transmission unit with protocol extensions |
| Transport |
TCP |
20-60B |
1480 Bit |
1 GB |
|
UDP |
8 B |
1480 Bit |
65535 B |
| Network |
IPv4 |
20 B – 60 B |
1500 Bit* |
65535 B |
|
IPv6 |
40 B – infinite |
1500 Bit |
4 GB |
| Data link |
10/100 Ethernet |
18 B |
1542 bit |
1542 bit |
|
1/10 GB Ethernet |
18 B |
1542 bit |
9000 bit** |
|
10/100 GB Ethernet |
18 B |
1542 bit |
64000 bit*** |
|
802.11 (WIFI) |
34 B |
2312 bit |
2312 bit |
* Fragmentation is widely used in IP protocols
** Jumbo frames are used on high-rate data link protocols, like Gigabit Ethernet or higher
*** is called Super jumbo frame. Not practically used and may not be profitable on a links lower than 10Gbit Ethernet
Eventually, intermediate zeros can be omitted in IPv4 also.
[slava@tiamat ~]$ ping 127.0.0.1
PING 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.068 ms
— 127.0.0.1 ping statistics —
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1398ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.040/0.054/0.068/0.014 ms
[slava@tiamat ~]$ ping 127.1
PING 127.1 (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.060 ms
— 127.1 ping statistics —
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1314ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.060/0.065/0.070/0.005 ms
Apparently, it inserts maximum possible amount (1 or 2) of intermediate zeros before last octet:
[slava@tiamat ~]$ ping 127.255
PING 127.255 (127.0.0.255) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 127.0.0.255: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.064 ms
— 127.255 ping statistics —
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2786ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.063/0.065/0.068/0.002 ms
[slava@tiamat ~]$ ping 198.41.4
PING 198.41.4 (198.41.0.4) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 198.41.0.4: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=155 ms
— 198.41.4 ping statistics —
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1514ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 155.323/155.361/155.400/0.396 ms
