title: What is the largest Safe UDP Packet Size on the Internet
body: <p>I've read a number of articles about UDP packet sizes but have been unable to come to a conclusion on whats correct.</p>
  
  <p>A number of services restrict the largest UDP packet to 512 bytes (like dns)</p>
  
  <p>Given the minimum <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit" rel="noreferrer" title="Maximum Transmission Unit">MTU</a> on the internet is 576 , and the size of the IPv4 header is 20 bytes, and the UDP header 8 bytes.   This leaves 548 bytes available for user data </p>
  
  <p>Would I be able to use packets up to the size of 548 without packet fragmentation?  Or is there something the creators of DNS knew about, and that why they restricted it to 512 bytes.</p>
  
  <p>Could I even go higher than 548 bytes safely?</p>