What is Packet Ricochet?

Categories:
Principal Article, SteelHead (Appliance), SteelHead SaaS (for Office 365, etc) (Steelhead Cloud Accelerator), SteelHead EX (Appliance)
Solution Number:
S17605
Last Modified:
2017-05-05
Issue

In a tcpdump you observe optimized traffic that is not not sourced from the expected WAN or LAN side of the in-path interface. 

Solution

Packet ricochet is a condition where the Steelhead sees the same data more than once.  This condition occurs when a Steelhead sends a packet through a given interface and the device on the other end of that interface sends the data back to the Steelhead.  For example, if a Steelhead wants to send a given packet to the WAN, but the default interface for unknown destinations is the LAN interface.  The Steelhead will then send the packet to the LAN interface, where a LAN-side router will return the packet to the Steelhead.  As a result, the Steelhead sees the same packet a second time and will then forward it on to the WAN (since the LAN-side router has now given the packet an appropriate destination).

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