Title: ip options


Ip options are an assortment of settings related to the ip protocol. However, most ip options involve the path that the ip packet takes to its destination. Ip options are discussed in detail on page 14 of RFC 791 as well as by the Data Network Resource.

Ip options are optional. If there are ip options, the ip options must be placed between the ip header and the udp header (for a udp packet):



The maximum size of the ip options is 40 bytes and must be a multiple of 4 bytes (RFC 791). This is a real limitation since the number of router ip addresses that can be stored in the ip options is very limited.