Fragmentation Practice
Fragmentation Practice
Example 1
• 1440 byte packet that must be routed through an
interface with an MTU of 576 bytes (the packet
size all hosts should be prepared to accept to
comply with the IP RFC).
We’ll assume the smallest possible IP header size
of 20 bytes meaning the original packet contains
1420 bytes of data.
First Fragment
A reserved bit not set, the Don’t Fragment flag not set and a More Fragments flag of 1 in
the Flags field, expressed in binary as: 001
The Fragment Offset field is set to zero as this is the first fragment, expressed in binary as: 0
0000 0000 0000
A Total Length field of 572 expressed in binary as: 0000 0010 0011 1100; the maximum possible
576 byte packet hasn’t been used because the fragment offset field in the following fragment must
be a multiple of 8 bytes – as the header is 20 bytes, this packet contains 552 bytes of data, with
868 bytes remaining
Second Fragment
An Identification field populated with the same ID number used for the first fragment
A reserved bit not set, the Don’t Fragment flag not set and a More Fragments flag of 1 in
the Flags field, expressed in binary as: 001
The Fragment Offset field is set to 69 (552/8), expressed in binary as: 0 0000 0100 0101
A Total Length field of 572 expressed in binary as: 0000 0010 0011 1100; this packet also
contains 552 bytes of data, with 316 bytes remaining
Third & Final Fragment
An Identification field populated with the same ID number used for the first and second fragments
A reserved bit not set, the Don’t Fragment flag not set and a More Fragments flag of 0 in
the Flags field, expressed in binary as: 000
The Fragment Offset field is set to 138 (1104/8), expressed in binary as: 0 0000 1000 1010
A Total Length field of 336 expressed in binary as: 0001 0101 0000; this packet contains 316
bytes of data
Example 2