Bug ID 442409: Packet sizes greater than 6144 might cause panic and reboot on BIG-IP 3600 and BIG-IP 1600 platforms.

Last Modified: Jul 12, 2023

Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP LTM(all modules)

Known Affected Versions:
9.4.8, 9.4.7, 9.4.6, 9.4.5, 11.4.1, 11.4.0, 11.3.0, 11.2.1, 11.2.0, 11.1.0, 11.0.0, 10.2.4, 10.2.3, 10.2.2, 10.2.1, 10.2.0, 10.1.0, 10.0.1, 10.0.0

Opened: Jan 08, 2014

Severity: 2-Critical

Symptoms

Packet sizes greater than 6144 might cause panic and reboot on BIG-IP 3600 and BIG-IP 1600 platforms. The panic results in log messages in ltm log: - notice bge_fast_ifoutput: packet_data_compact failed to reduce pkt size below 4. - notice panic: ifoutput: packet_data_compact failed to reduce pkt size below 4.

Impact

BIG-IP system operation is interrupted while the system reboots. Note that this error should never happen, but if it does, it indicates an underlying issue that needs investigation.

Conditions

This occurs on certain types of gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and only on BIG-IP 3600 and BIG-IP 1600 platforms. Typically, this is an indicator that something upstream is sending an invalid list of xfrags.

Workaround

Set MTU below 4000.

Fix Information

None

Behavior Change

Guides & references

K10134038: F5 Bug Tracker Filter Names and Tips