For example, here's 2 ways to answer the same question
"Change mss to 1328"
vs
"Here's the config I used to solve the problem
/ip firewall mangle
add action=change-mss chain=forward new-mss=1328 passthrough=yes protocol=tcp tcp-flags=syn"
Several things:
Remember that this is a forum of volunteer users that are not getting paid to provide answers. And providing the second answer takes significantly longer than providing the first.
I also think it depends a lot on the personality of the person answering the question, and whether the question has been answered many times in the past.
If the person answering is coming from a "teach a man to fish" point of view instead of "give a man a fish", it is less likely to be a direct answer to the specific question, because a specific answer is not very useful to learning, or to the next person asking the same question. A direct answer isn't helpful to learning for at least two reasons:
- The answer by itself gives no indication of how it was determined to be the solution, or how it solves the problem, perhaps even giving cases where the solution won't apply.
- The person receiving the answer puts no effort into solving the problem, and without effort, most people won't remember. That's why "practice problems" are assigned for homework.
Then there is also the issue of "
type 1" thinking that can lead to confirmation bias. See
this for
Derek Muller's (Veritasium) view.
In the specific example you gave, consider what happens if there is a link between you and some site that has an mtu below 1368 (and therefore needs an mss < 1328). Also assume that the remote end is clamping mss to 1200. The rule you provided (assuming I understand it), will unconditionally change (increase in this case) the mss on the syn-ack coming back from the remote site, so the local host establishing the tcp connection will think it is ok to send tcp packets with size 1368 (mss 1328) even though it should have only sent packets with mss of 1200 (1240 with ip and tcp headers).
So in my opinion, neither of the above answers is "great", but if I had to choose, I think the first is perhaps better (but it should have been "clamp mss to 1328" instead of "change mss to 1328") just because it will force the "student" to do some further investigation, and when they do that investigation, they would be more likely to find out why mss makes a difference, and some better options to use.
I prefer to provide links to other material that covers the subject than to just provide a "raw" answer. For example, a link to something that explains why I think the problem is related to mss, as well as a link to a possible solution, and also to reference material. Then the answer can be referred to in the future for similar questions.
For example, for the (poorly stated) problem in this thread. Perhaps there should be a thread with the title "When Asking Questions"
TCP MSS Clamping – What Is It and Why Do We Need It?
PMTU and MSS Discovery Issues Resolved with MikroTik
MikroTik Mangle Documentation