TCP/IP Basics

MSS

English

Overview

The maximum size of the data portion TCP can send at once.

Details

Short for Maximum Segment Size. The maximum number of bytes that can be sent at once as TCP payload, based on the MTU minus header overhead. On a typical 1500-byte Ethernet MTU, that works out to 1460 bytes after subtracting a 20-byte IP header and a 20-byte TCP header.

More Networking terms