Problem : Packet Fragmentation and ICMP Messages
This document uses this network diagram as an example:
In the diagram above, when the Client wants to access a page on the Internet, it establishes a TCP session with the Web Server. During this process, the Client and Web Server announce their maximum segment size (MSS), indicating to each other that they can accept TCP segments up to this size. Upon receiving the MSS option, each device calculates the size of the segment that can be sent. This is called the Send Max Segment Size (SMSS), and it equals the smaller of the two MSSs. For more information about TCP Maximum Segment Size, see
RFC 879 .For the sake of argument, let's say the Web Server in the example above determines that it can send packets up to 1500 bytes in length. It therefore sends a 1500 byte packet to the Client, and, in the IP header, it sets the "don't fragment" (DF) bit. When the packet arrives at R2, the router tries encapsulating it into the tunnel packet. In the case of the GRE tunnel interface, the IP maximum transmission unit (MTU) is 24 bytes less than the IP MTU of the real outgoing interface. For an Ethernet outgoing interface that means the IP MTU on the tunnel interface would be 1500 minus 24, or 1476 bytes.R2 is trying to send a 1500 byte IP packet into a 1476 byte IP MTU interface. Since this is not possible, R2 needs to fragment the packet, creating one packet of 1476 bytes (data and IP header) and one packet of 44 bytes (24 bytes of data and a new IP header of 20 bytes). R2 then GRE encapsulates both of these packets to get 1500 and 68 byte packets, respectively. These packets can now be sent out the real outbound interface, which has a 1500 byte IP MTU.However, remember that the packet received by R2 has the DF bit set. Therefore, R2 can't fragment the packet, and instead, it needs to instruct the Web Server to send smaller packets. It does this by sending an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) type 3 code 4 packet (Destination Unreachable; Fragmentation Needed and DF set). This ICMP message contains the correct MTU to be used by the Web Server, which should receive this message and adjust the packet size accordingly.
Note: Refer to
Important Information on Debug Commands before you use
debug commands.You can view the ICMP messages sent by R2 by enabling the
debug ip icmp command:
ICMP: dst (10.10.10.10) frag. needed and DF set unreachable sent to 10.1.3.4
Blocked ICMP Messages
A common problem occurs when ICMP messages are blocked along the path to the Web server. When this happens, the ICMP packet never reaches the Web server, thereby preventing data from passing between client and server.
Solutions
One of these four solutions should solve the problem:
Find out where along the path the ICMP message is blocked, and see if you can get it allowed.
Set the MTU on the Client's network interface to 1476 bytes, forcing the SMSS to be smaller, so packets will not have to be fragmented when they reach R2. However, if you change the MTU for the Client, you should also change the MTU for all devices that share the network with this Client. On an Ethernet segment, this could be a large number of devices.
Use a proxy-server (or, even better, a Web cache engine) between R2 and the Gateway router, and let the proxy-server request all the Internet pages.
If the GRE tunnel runs over links that can have an MTU greater than 1500 bytes plus the tunnel header, then another solution is to increase the MTU to 1524 (1500 plus 24 for the GRE overhead) on all interfaces and links between the GRE endpoint routers.
Further Solutions
If the above options are not feasible then these options can be useful:
In conclusion, the most common cause of not being able to browse the Internet over a GRE tunnel is due to the above mentioned fragmentation issue. The solution is to allow the ICMP packets or work around the ICMP problem with any of the above solutions.
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