Packet size limit for IP?

[Neuromancer]

I was wondering if there is a limit to the amount of payload that IP imposes? Or is it strictly the frame payload limit (ethernet) that limits the amount of data per packet?

[Danilo Dy]

The MTU varies between different links up to 10kb.

Check these links

http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/users/gorry/course/inet-pages/mtu.html

http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/users/gorry/course/inet-pages/ip-packet.html

http://sd.wareonearth.com/~phil/net/overhead/

[Neuromancer]

Thanks for the links. So it looks like layer 3 doesn't explicitly impose a payload limitation. The MTU comes from the layer 2 technology being used. Then of course you have the UDP max segment size (~65K). Thanks again!