Maximum packet size for a TCP connection

networking tcp
Alexa picture Alexa · Apr 10, 2010 · Viewed 370k times · Source

What is the maximum packet size for a TCP connection or how can I get the maximum packet size?

Answer

Ether picture Ether · Apr 10, 2010

The absolute limitation on TCP packet size is 64K (65535 bytes), but in practicality this is far larger than the size of any packet you will see, because the lower layers (e.g. ethernet) have lower packet sizes.

The MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) for Ethernet, for instance, is 1500 bytes. Some types of networks (like Token Ring) have larger MTUs, and some types have smaller MTUs, but the values are fixed for each physical technology.

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