Packet Fragmentation - Juniper JUNOSE 11.1.X - BROADBAND ACCESS CONFIGURATION GUIDE 6-4-2010 Configuration Manual

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9.

Packet Fragmentation

The E Series router supports the reassembly of IP-fragmented L2TP packets. (For
more information, see the IP Reassembly for Tunnels chapter in JUNOSe IP Services
Configuration Guide.) However, it is preferable to prevent fragmentation within L2TP
tunnels because of the effects of fragmentation and reassembly on performance.
To prevent fragmentation, PPP LCP negotiation of the maximum receive unit (MRU)
may be used to determine a proper maximum transmission unit (MTU). However,
the normal automatic method of determining the proper MRU to negotiate (by
evaluating the MRU of all lower layers in the interface stack) is not adequate for L2TP.
The initial LCP negotiation between PPP in the client and the LAC is inadequate
because it does not cover the entire extent of the eventual PPP session that travels
all the way from the client to the LNS. Furthermore, even if PPP in the LNS chooses
to renegotiate the MRU, it has no way to determine the proper MRU, since it does
not know the minimum MRU on all of the intervening links between it and the LAC.
To overcome the inadequacy of normal determination of the MRU under such
circumstances, you can configure the PPP MRU size by using the ppp mru command
in Profile Configuration mode, Interface Configuration mode, or Subinterface
Configuration mode. Use Profile Configuration mode for dynamic PPP interfaces,
and Interface Configuration mode or Subinterface Configuration mode for static PPP
interfaces.
When you specify the size, you need to take into account the MRU for all possible
links between the LAC and the LNS. You must also take into account the L2TP
encapsulation that is added to all packets entering the tunnel.
For example, if the link between the LAC and LNS with the lowest MRU were an
Ethernet link, the following calculation applies:
If the smallest intervening link is an Ethernet link, specifying ppp mru 1442 at either
the LAC or LNS guarantees that no fragmentation will occur within the L2TP tunnel.
The E Series PPP processes the proxy authentication data, if it is present, and
passes the data to AAA for verification. (If the data is not present, E Series PPP
requests the data from the remote system.)
The router passes the authentication results to the remote system.
Minimum link MRU
L2TP encapsulating IP header
L2TP encapsulating UDP header
Maximum L2TP header (assumes a maximum of
16 bytes of Offset Pad)
MRU size to specify
Chapter 11: L2TP Overview
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Packet Fragmentation
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