While troubleshooting slow file transfers between a Linux application server and a database host on another subnet, you find that 64-byte pings succeed but large SCP transfers hang immediately. You suspect a path MTU problem caused by a jumbo-frame mismatch somewhere along the route. Logged in as an unprivileged user on the application server, you want to determine automatically what the largest MTU is that can traverse the entire path without fragmentation, without having to guess packet sizes or modify interface settings. Which single Linux command would provide this information?
The tracepath utility sends UDP packets of increasing size and displays the smallest Path MTU (pmtu) value discovered along the route, telling you the maximum unfragmented packet size that can reach the destination. Because it relies on standard ICMP "Fragmentation Needed" messages, it works from an unprivileged account and does not require manual tuning of packet sizes.
The ping command with the "-M do -s 8972" flags can reveal that fragmentation is happening, but you must choose the size yourself and iterate to discover the exact MTU, so it is less efficient and may miss the correct value. "ip link show dev eth0" only reveals the local interface MTU and cannot test the complete path. The netstat fragment counter provides aggregate statistics and gives no per-path MTU information.
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