Patent ID: 8687653
Filing Date: 2014-04-01
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: at a network device configured as an origination endpoint for a tunnel, storing a keep-alive packet having a size of an interface maximum transmission unit (MTU) for sending to a termination endpoint for the tunnel, the keep-alive packet indicating the packet should not be fragmented; if an acknowledgement keep-alive packet responsive to the sending is not received within a predetermined time, repeating the sending until the acknowledgement keep-alive packet is received or until a predetermined number of keep-alive packets have been sent without receiving the acknowledgement keep-alive packet; and if the acknowledgement keep-alive packet is not received, iteratively changing the size of the keep-alive packet to converge upon a path MTU, the path MTU comprising the size of a largest keep-alive packet that can be sent from the network device to the termination endpoint without fragmentation.