Ive been told to set IP_TTL to its maximum value, 255 (0xFF). Is a high TTL undesirable?
For normal operation, it’s no big deal; it will cause your packets to bounce around locally a bit more than necessary, but that’s a local decision. However, the impact of a high TTL can be far more significant in long-range networking. During periods of network flakiness (which seem to be happening at an ever-increasing rate), a high TTL can cause the packet to bounce around far more than necessary. For instance, suppose that router A thinks that a router B should handle traffic for machine C; it will forward packets to router B, decrementing the TTL of each packet. If router B is confused, it might think that router A is supposed to handle traffic for machine C and fire the packet right back to router A. With a high TTL, you’ll generate endless loops between these two routers; this, in turn, will slow down everyone else’s traffic. [and, in some uncommon cases, crash the router; I did that once….8( ] While I certainly agree that it’s “someone else’s job” to make sure that these situa
For normal operation, it’s no big deal; it will cause your packets to bounce around locally a bit more than necessary, but that’s a local decision. However, the impact of a high TTL can be far more significant in long-range networking. During periods of network flakiness (which seem to be happening at an ever-increasing rate), a high TTL can cause the packet to bounce around far more than necessary. For instance, suppose that router A thinks that a router B should handle traffic for machine C; it will forward packets to router B, decrementing the TTL of each packet. If router B is confused, it might think that router A is supposed to handle traffic for machine C and fire the packet right back to router A. With a high TTL, you’ll generate endless loops between these two routers; this, in turn, will slow down everyone else’s traffic. [and, in some uncommon cases, crash the router; I did that once….8( ] While I certainly agree that it’s “someone else’s job” to make sure that these situa
