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Networking Fundamentals · Intermediate

Giant

An Ethernet frame larger than the maximum allowed size on an interface, normally 1518 bytes untagged.

Definition

Giants are dropped when a port does not support jumbo frames or when MTU settings mismatch. They may also come from faulty NICs. Some platforms count baby giants (slightly oversized frames from tagging or MPLS) separately.

Example

A server sending 9000-byte frames to a switch port with MTU 1500 generates giants.

Exam tip

Giants usually mean an MTU mismatch between connected devices.

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