Patent ID: 7738495

Claim:
A method of determining a maximum transmission unit (MTU) value on a network path between a first node and a second node comprising: (a) the first node establishing a Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) association with the second node; (b) the first node allowing one or more Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams on the network path to be fragmented, wherein the one or more IP datagrams store as payload first one or more SCTP packets of the SCTP association; (c) sending the one or more IP datagrams from the first node to the second node along the network path based on a first MTU value; wherein the second node is the destination of the one or more IP datagrams; wherein the second node determines if fragmentation of the one or more IP datagrams along the network path occurred; (d) if the second node determined that fragmentation of the one or more IP datagrams occurred, then performing: the first node receiving from the second node second one or more SCTP packets over the SCTP association, wherein the second one or more SCTP packets store one or more SCTP chunks which indicate that fragmentation occurred; the first node selecting a new MTU value; and repeating steps (b) to (d) using the new MTU value one or more times until determining that no fragmentation occurred; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.