Here's a bit of Windows PowerShell that I wrote to check for Path MTU issues. (The general technique is not too hard to implement in other programming languages.) A lot of firewalls and routers are configured to drop all ICMP by people who don't know any better. Path MTU Discovery depends on being able to receive an ICMP Destination Unreachable message with Fragementation Needed set in response to sending a packet with Don't Fragment set. The Resolve IPv4 Fragmentation, MTU, MSS, and PMTUD Issues with GRE and IPsec actually does a really good job of explaining how discovery works.
function Test-IPAddressOrName($ipAddressOrName)
{
$ipaddress = $null
$isValidIPAddressOrName = [ipaddress]::TryParse($ipAddressOrName, [ref] $ipaddress)
if ($isValidIPAddressOrName -eq $false)
{
$hasResolveDnsCommand = $null -ne (Get-Command Resolve-DnsName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
if ($hasResolveDnsCommand -eq $true)
{
$dnsResult = Resolve-DnsName -DnsOnly -Name $ipAddressOrName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$isValidIPAddressOrName = $null -ne $dnsResult
}
}
return $isValidIPAddressOrName
}
function Get-NameAndIPAddress($ipAddressOrName)
{
$hasResolveDnsCommand = $null -ne (Get-Command Resolve-DnsName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
$ipAddress = $null
$validIPAddress = [ipaddress]::TryParse($ipAddressOrName, [ref] $ipAddress)
$nameAndIp = [PSCustomObject] @{ 'Name' = $null; 'IPAddress' = $null }
if ($validIPAddress -eq $false)
{
if ($hasResolveDnsCommand -eq $true)
{
$dnsResult = Resolve-DnsName -DnsOnly $ipAddressOrName -Type A -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if ($null -ne $dnsResult -and $dnsResult.QueryType -eq 'A')
{
$nameAndIp.Name = $dnsResult.Name
$nameAndIp.IPAddress = $dnsResult.IPAddress
}
else
{
Write-Error "The name $($ipAddressOrName) could not be resolved."
$nameAndIp = $null
}
}
else
{
Write-Warning "Resolve-DnsName not present. DNS resolution check skipped."
}
}
else
{
$nameAndIp.IPAddress = $ipAddress
if ($hasResolveDnsCommand -eq $true)
{
$dnsResult = Resolve-DnsName -DnsOnly $ipAddress -Type PTR -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if ($null -ne $dnsResult -and $dnsResult.QueryType -eq 'PTR')
{
$nameAndIp.Name = $dnsResult.NameHost
}
}
}
return $nameAndIp
}
<#
.Synopsis
Performs a series of pings (ICMP echo requests) with Don't Fragment specified to discover the path MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit).
.Description
Performs a series of pings with Don't Fragment specified to discover the path MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit). An ICMP echo request
is sent with a random payload with a payload length specified by the PayloadBytesMinimun. ICMP echo requests of increasing size are
sent until a ping response status other than Success is received. If the response status is PackeTooBig, the last successful packet
length is returned as a reliable MTU; otherwise, if the respone status is TimedOut, the same size packet is retried up to the number
of retries specified. If all of the retries have been exhausted with a response status of TimedOut, the last successful packet
length is returned as the assumed MTU.
.Parameter UseDefaultGateway
If UseDefaultGateway is specified the default gateway reported by the network interface is used as the destination host.
.Parameter DestinationHost
The IP Address or valid fully qualified DNS name of the destination host.
.Parameter InitialTimeout
The number of milliseconds to wait for an ICMP echo reply. Internally, this is doubled each time a retry occurs.
.Parameter Retries
The number of times to try the ping in the event that no reply is recieved before the timeout.
.Parameter PayloadBytesMinimum
The minimum number of bytes in the payload to use. The minimum MTU for IPv4 is 68 bytes; however, in practice, it's extremely rare
to see an MTU size less than 576 bytes so the default value is 548 bytes (576 bytes total packet size minus an ICMP header of 28
bytes).
.Parameter PayloadBytesMaximum
The maximum number of bytes in the payload to use. An IPv4 MTU for jumbo frames is 9000 bytes. The default value is 8973 bytes (9001
bytes total packet size, which is 1 byte larger than the maximum IPv4 MTU for a jumbo frame, minus an ICMP header of 28 bytes).
.Example
Discover-PathMTU -UseDefaultGateway
.Example
Discover-PathMTU -DestinationHost '192.168.1.1'
.Example
Discover-PathMTU -DestinationHost 'www.google.com'
#>
function Discover-PathMtu
{
[CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess = $false)]
param
(
[Parameter(Mandatory = $true, ParameterSetName = 'DefaultGateway')]
[switch] $UseDefaultGateway,
[Parameter(Mandatory = $true, Position = 0, ValueFromPipeline = $true, ParameterSetName = 'IPAddressOrName')]
[ValidateScript({ Test-IPAddressOrName $_ })]
[string] $DestinationHost,
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'IPAddressOrName')]
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'DefaultGateway')]
[int] $InitialTimeout = 3000,
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'IPAddressOrName')]
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'DefaultGateway')]
[int] $Retries = 3,
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'IPAddressOrName')]
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'DefaultGateway')]
$PayloadBytesMinimum = 548,
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'IPAddressOrName')]
[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'DefaultGateway')]
$PayloadBytesMaximum = 8973
)
begin
{
$ipConfiguration = Get-NetIPConfiguration -Detailed | ?{ $_.NetProfile.Ipv4Connectivity -eq 'Internet' -and $_.NetAdapter.Status -eq 'Up' } | Sort { $_.IPv4DefaultGateway.InterfaceMetric } | Select -First 1
$gatewayIPAddress = $ipConfiguration.IPv4DefaultGateway.NextHop
$pingOptions = New-Object System.Net.NetworkInformation.PingOptions
$pingOptions.DontFragment = $true
$pinger = New-Object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping
$rng = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider
}
process
{
$pingIpAddress = $null
if ($UseDefaultGateway -eq $true)
{
$DestinationHost = $gatewayIPAddress
}
$nameAndIP = Get-NameAndIPAddress $DestinationHost
if ($null -ne $nameAndIP)
{
Write-Host "Performing Path MTU discovery for $($nameAndIP.Name) $($nameAndIP.IPAddress)..."
$pingReply = $null
$payloadLength = $PayloadBytesMinimum
$workingPingTimeout = $InitialTimeout
do
{
$payloadLength++
# Use a random payload to prevent compression in the path from potentially causing a false MTU report.
[byte[]] $payloadBuffer = (,0x00 * $payloadLength)
$rng.GetBytes($payloadBuffer)
$pingCount = 1
do
{
$pingReply = $pinger.Send($nameAndIP.IPAddress, $workingPingTimeout, $payloadBuffer, $pingOptions)
if ($pingReply.Status -notin 'Success', 'PacketTooBig', 'TimedOut')
{
Write-Warning "An unexpected ping reply status, $($pingReply.Status), was received in $($pingReply.RoundtripTime) milliseconds on attempt $($pingCount)."
}
elseif ($pingReply.Status -eq 'TimedOut')
{
Write-Warning "The ping request timed out while testing a packet of size $($payloadLength + 28) using a timeout value of $($workingPingTimeout) milliseconds on attempt $($pingCount)."
$workingPingTimeout = $workingPingTimeout * 2
}
else
{
Write-Verbose "Testing packet of size $($payloadLength + 28). The reply was $($pingReply.Status) and was received in $($pingReply.RoundtripTime) milliseconds on attempt $($pingCount)."
$workingPingTimeout = $InitialTimeout
}
Sleep -Milliseconds 10
$pingCount++
} while ($pingReply.Status -eq 'TimedOut' -and $pingCount -le $Retries)
} while ($payloadLength -lt $PayloadBytesMaximum -and $pingReply -ne $null -and $pingReply.Status -eq 'Success')
if ($pingReply.Status -eq 'PacketTooBig')
{
Write-Host "Reported IPv4 MTU is $($ipConfiguration.NetIPv4Interface.NlMtu). The discovered IPv4 MTU is $($payloadLength + 27)."
}
elseif ($pingReply.Status -eq 'TimedOut')
{
Write-Host "Reported IPv4 MTU is $($ipConfiguration.NetIPv4Interface.NlMtu). The discovered IPv4 MTU is $($payloadLength + 27), but may not be reliable because the packet appears to have been discarded."
}
else
{
Write-Host "Reported IPv4 MTU is $($ipConfiguration.NetIPv4Interface.NlMtu). The discovered IPv4 MTU is $($payloadLength + 27), but may not be reliable, due to an unexpected ping reply status."
}
return $payloadLength + 27
}
else
{
Write-Error "The name $($DestinationHost) could not be resolved. No Path MTU discovery will be performed."
}
}
end
{
if ($null -ne $pinger)
{
$pinger.Dispose()
}
if ($null -ne $rng)
{
$rng.Dispose()
}
}
}
