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    Posting to a forum issue

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      It does include '--mtu-disc'. FreeBSD doesn't support it but Linux does if your laptop is running that.

      Hard to say why pfSense appears to be reducing the apparent MTU size though.

      Steve

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      • PippinP
        Pippin
        last edited by

        Hi,

        OpenVPN's --mtu related directives are "inside tunnel" options, AFAIK.

        Also, the manual is not correct, --mtu-disc is not working IIRC.

        Thanks.

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        • PippinP
          Pippin
          last edited by

          Made a capture on OPT1, if someone is willing to take a look at it.

          Thanks.
          0_1544569894586_opt1withvpn.pcap

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          • PippinP
            Pippin
            last edited by

            Now reading here:
            https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn/blob/master/INSTALL

            If run through a firewall using OpenBSDs packet filter PF and the
            filter rules include a "scrub" directive, you may get problems talking
            to Linux hosts over the tunnel, since the scrubbing will kill packets
            sent from Linux hosts if they are fragmented. This is usually seen as
            tunnels where small packets and pings get through but large packets
            and "regular traffic" don't. To circumvent this, add "no-df" to
            the scrub directive so that the packet filter will let fragments with
            the "dont fragment"-flag set through anyway.>

            Could this somehow be tested?

            Thanks.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Hmm, Linux sends fragmented packets with df set? Seems.... interesting.

              You can disable pfscrub entirely to test that. You could probably make a custom rules file and load it temporarily with no-df set.

              I haven't see this for a long time but we have previously seen OpenVPN tunnels where fragmented packets would make it across the tunnel but never be sent out of the local interface at the other end. That only happened on OpenVPN tunnels where the interface was not assigned. Assigning it worked around it, somehow altering how pf handles the packets. I could see that being this issue.

              Steve

              JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JKnottJ
                JKnott @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10 said in Posting to a forum issue:

                Hmm, Linux sends fragmented packets with df set? Seems.... interesting.

                The DF flag tells routers not to fragment. The originating device is still free to fragment.

                PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                UniFi AC-Lite access point

                I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Mmm, I guess so. 🤔

                  JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • JKnottJ
                    JKnott @stephenw10
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 said in Posting to a forum issue:

                    Mmm, I guess so. 🤔

                    If the source wants to send a packtet that's too big to fit within the MTU, it might split it into more than one piece. This is typically done with UDP, but not TCP. These days, the world is moving to path MTU detection. It's mandatory on IPv6 and now used on IPv4. On Linux, with IPv4, the DF flag is set on everything, but in Windows TCP only. As for TCP, don't forget that every packet is a fragment, unless the entire data can be carried in a single packet.

                    The reason for moving away from fragmentation is to reduce the performance hit at routers, along with reassembling at the destination.

                    PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                    i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                    UniFi AC-Lite access point

                    I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                    • PippinP
                      Pippin
                      last edited by Pippin

                      So, ticking
                      "IP Do-Not-Fragment compatibility"
                      makes the issue go away.
                      I'm not sure if that is the right solution or somehow tell Linux not to set DF bit on fragmented packets...

                      Or is my conclusion wrong?

                      Thanks.

                      JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JKnottJ
                        JKnott @Pippin
                        last edited by

                        @Pippin

                        I don't know if that is the proper fix. My thought would be to find out what's causing this. What packets are being fragmented? If that setting only affects fragmented packets that have DF set, then I suppose it wouldn't be a problem. Still, I'd want to know why it's needed. As I mentioned, DF is used these days, for everything on Linux and TCP on Windows.

                        PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                        i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                        UniFi AC-Lite access point

                        I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                        • PippinP
                          Pippin
                          last edited by

                          This post is deleted!
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