Discovering maximum packet size - windows

I'm working on a network-related project and I am using DTLS (TLS/UDP) to secure communications.
Reading the specifications for DTLS, I've noted that DTLS requires the DF flag (Don't Fragment) to be set.
On my local network if I try to send a message bigger than 1500 bytes, nothing is sent. That makes perfect sense. On Windows the sendto() reports a success but nothing is sent.
I obviously cannot unset the DF flag manually since it is mandatory for DTLS and i'm not sure whether the 1500 bytes limit (MTU ?) could change in some situations. I guess it can.
So, my question is : "Is there a way to discover this limit ?" using APIs ?
If not, what would be the lowest possible value ?
My software runs under UNIX (Linux/MAC OSX) and Windows OSes so different solutions for each OS are welcome ;)
Many thanks.

There is a minimum MTU that must be supported - 576 bytes, including IP headers. So if you keep your packets below that, you don't have to worry about PMTU-D (that's what DNS does).

you probably need to 'auto tune' it by sending a range of packet sizes to the target, and see which arrive. think binary_search ...

Related

Zero-length packets for USB control transfers

In the context of a DFU driver, I'm trying to respond with a packet of length zero (not ZLP as in multiples of max size, just zero bytes) to a USB control in transfer. However, the host returns with a timeout condition. I tried both, the dfu-util tool and the corresponding protocol, as well as a minimal working example with pyusb just issuing a control in transfer of some length and the device returning no data.
My key question is: Do I achieve this by responding with a NAK or should I set the endpoint valid but without any data? The specs are rather vague about this, imo.
Here are some technical details since I'm not sure where the problem is:
Host: Linux Kernel 5.16.10, dfu-util and pyusb (presumably) both using libusb 0.1.12
Device: STM32L1 with ChibiOS 21.11.1 USB stack (sends NAK in the above situation, I also tried to modify it to send a zero-length packet without success)
It sounds like you are programming the firmware of a device, and you want your device to give a response that is 0 bytes long when the host starts a control read transfer.
You can't simply send a NAK token: that is what the device does when the data isn't ready yet, and it causes the host to try again later to read the data.
Instead, you must actually send a 0-length IN packet to the host. When the host receives this packet, it sees that the packet is shorter than the maximum packet size, so it knows the data phase of the control transfer is done, and it moves on to the status stage.

Embarcadero RAD Studio & Indy. Error message “Package Size Too Big”

I use Embarcadero RAD Studio & Indy and I have a problem.
I am using component IdUDPServer and try to send file via UDP messages.
The file is successfully transferred if it is not large.
However, the error message “Package Size Too Big” appears if the file is large.
My code:
FileAPP->ReadBuffer(Buffer, Size);
IdUDPServer1->SendBuffer("10.6.1.255", 34004, RawToBytes(&Buffer, Size));
I see two ways to solve this problem:
1) Compose small messages and send these messages in a loop.
This is an easy way to solve the problem, however I will need to fix the remote application.
This is currently difficult. I do not have much time.
2)I want to find a condition in the source code where this error message is generated.
Maybe I can fix the condition and it will work for my specific task.
I have added some pictures. This is all the information that I now have.
Screenshots from help file: Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3
Error message: Picture 4
Please help me if you know the solution.
"Package Size Too Big" means you tried to send a datagram that is too large for UDP to handle. UDP has an effective max limit of 65507 bytes of payload data per datagram. You can't send a large file in a single datagram, it just won't fit.
So yes, you will have to break up your file into smaller chucks that are sent in separate datagrams. And as such, because UDP is connection-less and does not guarantee delivery, you will also have to solve the issues of lost packets and out-of-order packets. You will have to put a rolling sequence number inside your packets so that the receiver can save packets in the proper order. And you will have to implement a re-transmission mechanism to re-send lost packets that the receiver did not receive.
I would suggest not using TIdUDPClient/TIdUDPServer to implement file transfers manually, if possible. Indy has TIdTrivialFTP/TIdTrivialFTPServer components that implement the standardized UDP-based TFTP protocol, which handles these kind of details for you. By default, TFTP has a limit of ~32MB per file (512 bytes per datagram * 65535 datagrams max), but you can increase that limit using the TIdTrivialFTP.RequestedBlockSize property to request permission from a TFTP server to send more bytes per datagram. RequestedBlockSize is set to 1500 bytes by default, which can accommodate files up to ~93.7MB in size (though in practice it should not be set higher than 1468 bytes so TFTP datagrams won't exceed the MTU size of Ethernet packets, thus limiting the max file size closer to ~91.7MB). The RequestedBlockSize can be set as high as 65464 bytes per datagram to handle files up to ~3.9GB (at the risk of fragmenting UDP packets at the IP layer).
It is also possible for TFTP to handle unlimited file sizes with smaller datagram sizes, though TidTrivialFTP/TIdTrivialFTPServer do not currently implement this, because this behavior is not currently standardized in the TFTP protocol, but is commonly implemented as an extension in 3rd party implementations.
Otherwise, you should consider using TCP instead of UDP for your file transfers. TCP doesn't suffer from these problems.

Is tcpdump 100% reliable on outgoing connection?

I'm working on a server.
Its doing health check to another server, like a simple tcp open connection
Basically my tcpdump says that the packet (the health check tcp sYn packet) is going out of my interface.
But, the Firewall doesnt see anything.
I have doubt if the packet is going outside the server at all, or the problem is on the switch.
Is there a way to be sure about this?
Captured traffic == source of truth
It's possible for tcpdump to have false negatives (i.e. packets are sent but tcpdump doesn't record them). This can be due to hardware (CPU, RAM, disk) being maxed or if tcpdump's buffer size (-B) is too small. Likewise, it's possible your firewall isn't picking it up where it should.
It's highly unlikely for tcpdump to report a false positive. Tcpdump copies bytes from your network interface [0] and summarizes them in a text line (depending on your output options). If firewall rules from e.g. iptables would block traffic, tcpdump won't see the traffic. If tcpdump reports a packet, you can be sure it transited that interface.
[0]: If you're curious how tcpdump works at a lower level, use strace.
Flow-based troubleshooting
Flow-based troubleshooting can be required to figure out where packets get dropped in a network. For your network of server:A <-> B:switch:C <-> D:Firewall, we know that A sends it and D does not receive it. Thus you should check ports B and C to determine where the packet loss occurs. It's also possible that D reports a false negative. You can test both of these things by plugging this server directly into a different firewall that can take packet captures/monitor traffic.

Arduino Serial transmitting Missing One Charcter

I am using Arduino Leonardo to transmit an string to a wifi module. The format of command that wifi module can recognize is:
AT60,1,content to a server
I am using an virtual server(TCP/IP Builder) to test the content I can received.
Here is the content I want to send:
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&deviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
Since I try to send it again and again, I use a loop to send it. In the virtual server side, the content I got is:
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&devceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&devceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&dviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&eviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&devieId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003deviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&dviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&dviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&deiceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&dviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON
This is the QUESTION: There exist one terrible mistake in the content I received, which is the deviceId part never correct. It's so weird.
Here is part of related code:
//In Uart.cpp
//These three lines can sent a formatted string as "AT60,1,content"
Serial1.write("AT60,");
Serial1.write(channelID); //channel ID = 1 here
Serial1.write(reportIsFire, 76);
//In Uart.h
//Definition of the string I need to send, which has 76 characters.
char reportIsFire[76] = ",smart/device/deviceCmd?userId=1010002003&deviceId=A00019999990002&cmd=ON \n";
Here is few background of this application:
I am using Arduino 1.5.8 IDE with VisualStudio
Since the serial buffer of Arduino is only 64 Bytes, I have already
change the buffer size to 128 Bytes in "HardwareSerial.h" to send
out this large string.
The baud rate is 115200 and I am using Serial 1. I have used Serial 1
to transmit few other characters and it works fine.
I will appreciate that If you have any idea about this question.
I am betting that the serial baud rate of the Arduino is not 100% correct. Increasing the buffer size will not matter if the data is being lost due to a timing issue in the physical link.
I'd recommend double-checking the code that initializes the serial baud rate generator. It may be possible to get a closer rate to 115,200 by either adjusting the available settings, altering the main clock speed (if possible), implementing some form of flow control, or all of the above.
In extreme cases, you may consider using a special-frequency oscillator. Many Microchip PICs use an internal or external 4MHz or 8MHz crystal, but this can produce far too much timing error for lengthy serial transmissions at high speed. In that case, something special, like a 7.3728MHz crystal can be used, bringing the accuracy to exactly 100% (at least on some PIC devices.)
Lastly, another consideration is if any pre-emptive code is running on the device, such as interrupts or timers which could inadvertently interfere with the serial output.
I don't have an answer, but I suspect the most likely problem is that the Wifi card can't read characters at a sustained 115200 baud rate. If possible, set the Wifi baud rate and the Arduino Serial.begin() to a lower rate, such as 57600 or 19200.
If the Arduino baud rate was simply inaccurate, I'd expect to see the problem appearing at random locations in the string, rather than about 40 characters in.

SnmpExtensionTrap has a size limit?

I am working on a problem in SNMP extension agent in windows, which is passing traps to snmp.exe via SnmpExtensionTrap callback.
We added a couple of fields to the agent recently, and I am starting to see that some traps are getting lost. When I intercept the call in debugger and reduce the length of some strings, the same traps, that would have been lost, will go through.
I cannot seem to find any references to size limit or anything on the data passed via SnmpExtensionTrap. Does anyone know of one?
I would expect the trap size to be limited by the UDP packet size, since SNMP runs over the datagram-oriented UDP protocol.
The maximum size of a UDP packet is 64Kb but you'll have to take into account the SNMP overhead plus any limitations of the transport you're running over (e.g. ethernet).

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