Multicast
A transmission method in which one source node
communicates with one or more destination nodes with
a single transmission.
However, in contrast to a broadcast, which is sent to all
connected nodes, a multicast message is transmitted
only to some of the possible recipients.
Not available in the general Internet – the IP multicast
feature tuned off.
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Multicasting And Multicast
Routing Protocols
Unicast
Identify one host
Anycast
Identify one host in a set of hosts
Broadcast
Identify all hosts
Multicast
Identify a set of hosts
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Figure 14-1
Introduction: Unicasting
In unicast routing, the router forwards
the received packet through
only one of its interfaces.
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Figure 14-2
Multicasting
In multicast routing,
the router may forward the
received packet
through several of its interfaces.
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Figure 14-3
Multicasting versus multiple unicasting
Emulation of multicasting through
multiple unicasting is not
efficient and may
create long delays,
particularly with a large group.
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Multicasting versus multiple unicasting (2)
Src Src
Multicast Communication
•Multicastabstraction is peer-to-peer
Application-level multicast
Network-level multicast
Requires router support (multicast-enabled routers)
Multicast provided at network protocol level IP
multicast
© Dr. Ayman Abdel-Hamid, CS4254
Multicasting Spring 2006 7
Multicast Communication
•Transport mechanism and network layer must support
multicast
•Internet multicast limited to UDP (not TCP)
Unreliable: No acknowledgements or other error
recovery schemes (perhaps at application level)
Connectionless: No connection setup (although there is
routing information provided to multicast-enabled routers)
© Dr. Ayman Abdel-Hamid, CS4254
Multicasting Spring 2006 8
IPv4 Address Formats
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Some special multicast
addresses:
See PDF: 7) Multicast (Some
special multicast addresses)
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Application of Multicasting
One-to-Many Multicast
Internet TV, Webcasting (News Delivery)
Webcasting of Broadband Streaming Media
Remote Education (Distant Learning)
Distribution of Financial Data: Stock-ticker
Software updates to customers
ISPs services
Commercial services
Many-to-Many Multicast
Teleconferencing, Web Seminars
Whiteboard
Online multi-player games
Distributed simulations
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Multicast routing protocols
On a local network (join/leave):
Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD): similar to IGMP but
for IPv6
Intra-domain (routing):
SOURCE TREE: MOSPF, PIM, DVMRP (RFP, RPB, RPM)
SHARED TREE: CBT
Inter-domain (routing):
Multicast Border Gateway Protocol (MBGP)
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Joining a multicast group: 2-step process
Local: host informs local multicast router of desire to join
group: IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol)
Wide area: local router interacts with other routers to
receive multicast datagram flow
many protocols (e.g., DVMRP, MOSPF, PIM)
IGMP
IGMP
wide-area
multicast
routing
IGMP
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Internet Group Management
Protocol (IGMP)
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Internet Group Management Protocol
(IGMP)
IGMP is a protocol that manages group membership.
The IGMP protocol gives the multicast routers
information about the membership status of hosts
(routers) connected to the network.
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IGMP: Internet Group Management Protocol
Router: sends IGMP query at regular intervals
hosts belonging to a multicast group must reply to
query if wishing to join or stay in the group.
Host: sends IGMP report (reply) when application wishes
to join a multicast group.
query report
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IGMP
Router: broadcasts Host Group-specific Query
Membership Query Leave Group message
message on LAN. Last host replying to
Host: replies with Host
Query can send explicit
Membership Report
Leave Group message
message to indicate group
Router performs group-
membership
randomized delay specific query to see if
before responding any hosts left in group
Introduced in RFC 2236
cancel its own report if
hearing another IGMP v3: current version
implicit leave via no
reply to Query
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IGMP message types
21.18
IGMP: Summary
For membership management.
Between a host on a subnet (Ethernet) and the router for
the subnet.
The router periodically broadcast an IGMP host-
membership query message on its subnet.
A host subscribes to a group replies by multicasting a
host-membership report message.
Note: feedback implosion uses a random timer.
The report is sent 3 times (for reliability).
IGMP-1: hosts send no report leaving the group
IGMP-2: hosts send explicit host-membership leave
messages to reduce leave latency.
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Multicast Listener Discovery
(MLD):
similar to IGMP but for IPv6
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Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD)
MLD is equivalent to IGMP in IPv4
MLD messages are transported over ICMPv6
Version number confusion:
MLDv1 corresponds to IGMPv2
•RFC 2710
MLDv2 corresponds to IGMPv3
RFC 3810
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MOSPF
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Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF)
Extension of the OSPF protocol that uses
multicast link state routing.
The protocol requires a new link state
update packet to associate the unicast
address of a host with the group address.
This packet is called the group membership
LSA.
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Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF)
A tree containing all the hosts belonging to a
group is built (using the unicast address of the
host for calculation).
Router calculates the shortest path trees on
demand (when it receives the first multicast
packet).
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Protocol Independent
Multicast (PIM)
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Figure 14-10
Shared-group tree with rendezvous router
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Figure 14-11
Sending a multicast packet to
the rendezvous router
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DVMRP
(RFP, RPB, RPM)
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Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol -
DVMRP
No pre-defined route from source to destination. Tree is
gradually created by successive routers along the path.
Uses shortest path (fewest hops)
Prevent loops: apply Reverse Path Forwarding (RFP)
Prevent Duplication: apply Reverse Path Broadcasting (RPB)
Multicast with dynamic membership: apply Reverse Path
Multicasting (RPM) with pruning, grafting, and lifetime.
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Figure 14-5
Reverse Path Forwarding
In reverse path forwarding (RPF),
the router forwards only
the packets that have traveled the
shortest path from the source
to the router; all other
copies are discarded. No Loops
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Figure 14-6
Reverse Path Broadcasting
Prevent Duplication in RPF
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Figure 14-7
RPF versus RPB
The router with the shortest path to the source becomes the
designated parent of a network
A Router forwards packets only to its designated child networks
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RPB creates a shortest path
broadcast tree from the source
to each destination.
It guarantees that each destination
receives one and only
one copy of the packet.
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Core-Based Tree
CBT
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In CBT, the source sends the
multicast packet (encapsulated in a
unicast packet) to the core router.
The core router decapsulates the
packet and forwards it
to all interested hosts.
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Multicast Border Gateway
Protocol (MBGP)
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MBGP
• MBGP: Multiprotocol BGP
– Defined in RFC 2858 (extensions to
BGP)
– Can carry different types of routes
• Unicast
• Multicast
– Both routes carried in same BGP session
– Does not propagate multicast state info
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Summary
Multicasting is the sending of the same message to
more than one receiver simultaneously. Multicasting has
many applications including distributed databases,
information dissemination, teleconferencing, and
distance learning.
In classless addressing the block 224.0.0.0/4 is used for
multicast addressing. This block is sometimes referred
to as the multicast address space and is divided into
several blocks (smaller blocks) for different purposes.
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Summary
The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is
involved in collecting local membership group
information. The last version of IGMP, IGMPv3 uses two
types of messages: query and report.
In a source-based tree approach to multicast routing, the
source/group combination determines the tree. RPF, RPB,
and RPM are efficient improvements to sourcebased trees.
MOSPF/DVMRP and PIM-DM are two protocols that use
sourcebased tree methods to multicast.
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Summary
In a group-shared approach to multicasting, one
rendezvous router takes the responsibility of distributing
multicast messages to their destinations. CBT and PIM-
SM are examples of group-shared tree protocols.
For multicasting between two noncontiguous multicast
routers, we make a multicast backbone (MBONE) to
enable tunneling.
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