Responding to individual concerns in the post...
Regarding Path MTU Discovery
Ideally i would be relying on Path MTU discovery. But since the ethernet packets being generated are too large for any other machine to receive, there is no opportunity for IP Packet too big fragmentation messages to be returned
Based on your diagram, I agree that PMTUD cannot function between two different PCs in the same LAN segment; PCs do not generate ICMP Error messages required by PMTUD.
Jumbo frames
Some vendors (such as Cisco) have switch models which support ethernet payloads larger than 1500 bytes. Officially IEEE does not endorse this configuration, but the industry has valid needs to judiciously deviate from the original 1500 byte MTU. I have storage LAN / backup networks which leverage jumbo frame for good reason; however, I made sure that all MTUs matched inside the same vlan when I deployed jumbo frames.
Mismatched MTUs within a broadcast domain
The bottom line is that you should never have mismatched ethernet MTUs inside the same ethernet broadcast domain; if you do, it's a bug or configuration error. Regardless of bug or error, you have to solve these problems, sometimes manually.
All that discussion leads to the next question...
Why is there a spec that intentionally creates invalid ethernet frames?
I'm not sure that I agree... I don't see how the IEEE 802.3 series, or RFC 894 create invalid frames. Host implementations or host misconfigurations create invalid frames. To understand whether your implementation is following the spec, we need a lot more evidence...
This diagram is at least prima facie evidence that your MTUs are mismatched inside a broadcast domain...
+------------------+ +----------------+ +------------------+
| Realtek PCIe GBe | | NetGear 10/100 | | Realtek 10/100 |
| (on-board) | | Switch | | (on-board) |
| | +----------------+ | |
| Windows 7 | ^ ^ | |
| | | | | |
| 192.168.1.98/24 |-----------+ +------------| 192.168.1.10/24 |
| MTU = 1504 bytes | | MTU = 1500 bytes |
+------------------+ +------------------+
How should an 802.3-compliant implementation respond to MTU mismatches?
What was it they [the writers of 'the spec'] expected people to do with devices that generate these too large packets?
MTU 1504 and MTU 1500 within the same broadcast domain is simply a misconfiguration; it should never be expected to work any more than mismatched IP netmasks, or mismatched IP subnets can be expected to work. Your company will have to knuckle-down and fix the root-cause of the MTU mismatches... at this time it's hard to say whether the root cause is user error, an implementation bug, or some combination of the above.
If the affected Windows machines are successfully logging into to an Active Directory Domain, one could write Windows login scripts to automatically fix MTU issues based on some well-constructed tests inside the domain login scripts (assuming the Domain Controller isn't part of the MTU issues).
If the machines are not logging into a domain, manual labor is another option.
Other possibilities to contain the damage
Use a layer3 switchNote 1 to build a custom vlan for anything that has broken MTUs and set the layer3 switch's ethernet MTU to match the broken machines; this relies on PMTUD to resolve MTU issues at the IP layer. Layer3 switches generate the ICMP errors required by PMTUD.
This option works best if you can re-address the broken machines with DHCP; and you can identify the broken machines by mac-address.
... why did they bump it up to 1504 bytes, and create invalid packets, in the first place?
Hard to say at this point
802.1ad vs 802.1q
How is IEEE 802.1ad (aka VLAN Tagging, QinQ) valid, when the packets are too large?
I haven't seen evidence so far that you're using QinQ; from the limited evidence I have seen so far, you're using simple 802.1q encapsulation, which should work correctly in Windows, assuming the NIC driver supports 802.1q encap.
End Notes:
Note 1Any layer 3 switch should do... Cisco, Juniper, and Brocades all could perform this kind of function.
By using the request system zeroize media operation mode command via the CLI, you can reset the device to factory defaults. It will erase all the logs, data, and the load factory-default configuration on the device. It is the same as using the Reset Config button on the front panel on the SRX100, SRX210, SRX240, and SRX650 devices.
When the device is rebooted, it will not ask for the password and have any logs or the factory-default configuration.
The load factory-default command in the config mode will only erase the configuration and load the factory default configuration. However, you have to set the root-authentication password prior to committing the configuration.
For more info you can see:
[ https://kb.juniper.net/InfoCenter/index?page=content&id=KB23787 1
Best Answer
0x8100
This TPID is used in 802.1Q - its your average, everyday VLAN tagging. A common use for VLANs is for enterprises to organize their network into functional groups (like research, finance, or management).
0x88a8
This TPID is used in 802.1ad - its used for provider bridging (also known as QinQ, stacked VLANs, or double tagging). QinQ allows multiple VLAN tags in an Ethernet frame.
QinQ is used when a customer has to transport VLAN tagged traffic across a service provider network. The service provider will have its own set of VLAN tags, perhaps a tag per customer. So we have customer VLAN tags, and service provider VLAN tags, appropriately called C-TAGs and S-TAGs.
S-TAGs are correlated with the 0x88a8 TPID to signify the existence of the inner C-TAG which uses TPID 0x8100 (S-TAGs are inserted before C-TAGs).
They're not, here is a list of the common IEEE TPIDs.
To be more specific, the default is 0x8100 because 802.1Q is used WAY more commonly than 802.1ad/Provider Bridging.
To be even more specific to what I assume is a quote from the JNCIS documentation, is just really poor wording. I believe it's saying that the default TPID is 0x8100 (to imply that 802.1q is default).