Packet Too Big Detection and its Integration into QUIC

A communication over an Internet Protocol (IP) based network fails if an endpoint sends packets that are too big to reach their destination and if the sender is unable to detect that. The node on the path that drops these packets should respond with a Packet Too Big (PTB) message. However, multiple scenarios exist in which the sender will not receive a PTB message. Even if it does, it refrains from using the information in case it suspects that a potential attacker forged the message. In particular, we are not aware of any implementation of the secure transport protocol QUIC (e.g., used by HTTP/3) that processes PTB messages. In this paper, we present a novel parameterizable PTB detection algorithm for reliable transport protocols that does not depend on PTB messages. We further describe how to integrate our algorithm into QUIC, present results from an evaluation using the algorithm within a QUIC simulation model and, based on these results, suggest concrete parameter values.