IP fragmentation

IP fragmentation is an Internet Protocol (IP) process that breaks packets into smaller pieces (fragments), so that the resulting pieces can pass through a link with a smaller maximum transmission unit (MTU) than the original packet size. The fragments are reassembled by the receiving host.

Not to be confused with fragmentation of the IPv4 address space.

The details of the fragmentation mechanism, as well as the overall architectural approach to fragmentation, are different between IPv4 and IPv6.

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