I know that if IP payload > MTU then routers usually fragment the IP packet. Finally all the fragmented packets are assembled at the destination using the fields IP-ID, IP fragment offsets and fragmentation flags. Max length of IP payload is 64K. Thus its very plausible for L4 to hand over payload which is 64K. If the L2 protocol is Ethernet, which often is the case, then the MTU will be about 1600 bytes. Hence IP packet will be fragmented at the source host itself. However, a quick search about IP implementation in Linux tells me that in recent kernels, L4 protocols are fragment friendly i.e. they try to save the fragmentation work for IP by handing over buffers of size which is close to MTU.

Considering these two facts, I am wondering about how frequently does the IP packet gets fragmented at the source host itself. Does it occur sometimes/rarely/never? Does anyone know if there are exceptions to the rule of fragmentation in linux kernel (i.e. are there situations where L4 protocols are not fragment friendly)? How is this handled in other common OSes like windows? In general how frequently IP packets are fragmented?