MULTICAST ROUTIMG
• When a router receives a multicast packet, the
situation is different from when it receives a
unicast packet.
• A multicast packet may have destinations in
more than one network.
• Forwarding of a single packet to members of a
group requires a shortest path tree
Source-Based Tree:
• In the source-based tree approach, each router needs
to have one shortest path tree for each group.
• The shortest path tree for a group defines the next hop
for each network that has loyal member(s) for that
group
• five groups in the domain: GI, G2, G3, G4, and G5.
• At the moment GI has loyal members in four networks,
G2 in three, G3 in two, G4 in two, and G5 in two.
• There is one shortest path tree for each group;
therefore there are five shortest path trees for five
groups.
Group-Shared Tree:
• In the group-shared tree approach, instead of
each router having m shortest path trees, only one
designated router, called the center core, or
rendezvous router, takes the responsibility of
distributing multicast traffic.
• The core has m shortest path trees in its routing
table.
• The rest of the routers in the domain have none. If
a router receives a multicast packet, it
encapsulates the packet in a unicast packet and
sends it to the core router
Taxonomy of common multicast protocols
22.7
Multicast Distance Vector: DVMRP
• Multicast routing does not allow a router to send
its routing table to its neighbours.
• The multicast distance vector algorithm uses a
process based on four decision-making
strategies.
• Flooding
• Reverse path forwarding (RPF)
• Reverse path Broadcasting (RPB)
• Reverse path Multicasting (RPM)
8
Flooding
• A router receives a packet and, without
even looking at the destination group
address, sends it out from every interface
except the one from which it was received.
Flooding accomplishes the first goal of
multicasting: every network with active
members receives the packet.
• This is a broadcast, not a multicast.
9
Problem
• creates loops. A packet that has left the router may
come back again from another interface or the same
interface and be forwarded again.
Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF)
RPF is a modified flooding strategy. To prevent
loops, only one copy is forwarded; the other
copies are dropped. In RPF, a router forwards
only the copy that has travelled the shortest
path from the source to the router.
To find this copy, RPF uses the unicast routing
table The router receives a packet and extracts
the source address (a unicast address).
11
Figure 12.22 RPF
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 12
E.g. No Loops in RPF
Src
Shortest Path
HC=L+2
R0
Shortest Path
HC=L
R1 R2
Shortest Path
HC=L+1
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 13
Note
RPF eliminates the loop in the
flooding process.
22.14
Reverse Path Broadcasting(RPB).
• RPF guarantees that each network receives a
copy of the multicast packet without formation
of loops. However, RPF does not guarantee
that each network receives only one copy; a
network may receive two or more copies.
The reason is that RPF is not based on the
destination address.
Figure 12.23 Problem with RPF
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 16
RPF Versus RPB
The designated parent router can be the router
with the shortest path to the source. If more
than one router qualifies, the router with the
smallest IP address is selected.
[Link], AP(SG)/IT, MSEC, Sivakasi 17
Note
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.
22.18
Reverse Path Multicasting (RPM).
• RPB does not multicast the packet, it broadcasts it.
This is not efficient. To increase efficiency, the
multicast packet must reach only those networks
that have active members for that particular group.
This is called reverse path multicasting (RPM).
• The designated parent router of each network is
responsible for holding the membership
information. This is done through the IGMP
protocol
19
RPF, RPB, and RPM
22.20
Note
RPM adds pruning and grafting to RPB to create a multicast shortest
path tree that supports dynamic membership changes.
22.21
Protocol Independent Multicast
Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) is the
name given to two independent multicast
routing protocols:
• Protocol Independent Multicast, Dense Mode
(PIM-DM) and
• Protocol Independent Multicast, Sparse Mode
(PIM-SM).
• PIM-DM PIM-DM is used when there is a
possibility that each router is involved in
multicasting (dense mode).
• In this environment, the use of a protocol that
broadcasts the packet is justified because
almost all routers are involved in the process.
• PIM-DM is a source-based tree routing
protocol that uses RPF and pruning and
grafting strategies for multicasting.
• PIM-SM is used when there is a slight
possibility that each router is involved in
multicasting (sparse mode).
• PIM-SM is a group-shared tree routing
protocol.