[p2p-hackers] MTU in the real world

[David Barrett]

I've read in multiple places that it's best to have a UDP MTU of under 
1500 bytes.  However, it sounds like most of this is based on 
theoretical analysis, and not on real-world experience.

With this in mind, have you tried using a MTU bigger than 1500 bytes and 
been bitten by it?  Basically, do you know of any emperical analysis (of 
any level of formality) of a real-world UDP application that supports or 
refutes the 1500 byte rule of thumb?

Furthermore, I've read that if you "connect" your UDP socket to the 
remote side and then start sending large packets and backing off slowly, 
the socket layer will compute the "real" MTU between two endpoints, and 
you can obtain it through "getsockopt".  Do you know of anyone who's 
tried this, and the results?

-david