Bidirectional PIM or Bidirectional Multicast

Table 1: Feature History

Feature Name Release Information Description

Support of Bidirectional Multicast Cisco IOS XE Cupertino 17.8.1 Bidirectional PIM or bidirectional
multicast (RFC-5015) is an
operating mode that enhances PIM
by creating bidirectional multicast
distribution trees.
It helps deploy emerging
communication and financial
applications that rely on a
many-to-many applications model.
Use the following command to
enable bidirectional PIM:
ip pim bidir-enable

Bidirectional PIM is a variant of PIM Sparse mode that builds bidirectional multicast trees between sources
and receivers without maintaining any source specific state along each node of the tree.
Prior to Cisco IOS XE Cupertino Release 17.8.1, PIM Sparse mode used to only provide loop-free,
unidirectional multicast distribution trees.
Starting with Cisco IOS XE Cupertino Release 17.8.1, bidirectional PIM allows multicast devices to keep
reduced state information, as compared with unidirectional shared trees in PIM Sparse mode. Bidirectional
shared trees convey data from sources to the Rendezvous Point Address (RPA) and distribute them from the
RPA to the receivers.

Note This feature is only supported on Cisco RSP3 module.

A single Designated Forwarder (DF) exists for each RPA on every link within a bidirectional PIM domain
(including multiaccess and point-to-point links). The only exception is the RPL on which no DF exists. The
DF is the device on the link with the best route to the RPA, which is determined by comparing Multicast
Routing Information Base (MRIB)-provided metrics. A DF for a given RPA forwards downstream traffic
onto its link and forwards upstream traffic from its link toward the Rendezvous Point link (RPL). The DF

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Advantages of Bidirectional PIM

performs this function for all bidirectional groups that map to the RPA. The DF on a link is also responsible
for processing Join messages from downstream devices on the link as well as ensuring that packets are
forwarded to local receivers discovered through a local membership mechanism such as IGMPv2.
Bidirectional PIM enables many-to-many applications applications by allowing them to easily scale to a very
large number of groups and sources by eliminating the maintenance of source state.
• Advantages of Bidirectional PIM, on page 2
• Restrictions for Bidirectional PIM, on page 2
• Bidirectional Shared Tree, on page 3
• Designated Forwarder, on page 4
• Bidirectional Group Tree Building, on page 4
• Packet Forwarding, on page 5
• Configure Bidirectional PIM, on page 5
• Verification of Bidirectional PIM Configuration, on page 5
• Support for MVPN Bidirectional PIM, on page 7

Advantages of Bidirectional PIM

• Unlike PIM Sparse mode and PIM dense mode, the bidirectional PIM feature offers increased multicast
scalability and reduced impact on router CPU and memory resources.
• The feature is well suited for many-to-many type of applications because the multicast routing state does
not increase as the number of multicast sources increases and the amount of multicast state maintained
by the router is reduced significantly compared with the other operating mode.
• Unlike PIM-SM, bidirectional PIM does not switch over to the source tree, and there is no register
encapsulation of data from the source to the Rendezvous Point (RP).
• The feature removes the performance cost of maintaining a routing state table for a large number of
sources.

Restrictions for Bidirectional PIM

• GRE based MVPN bidirectional PIM is not supported.
• MLDP-based MVPN bidirectional PIM is not be supported for Cisco IOS XE Cupertino Release 17.8.1.
• IPv6 traffic is not supported.
• Per OIF statistics is not supported for bidirectional PIM prefixes.
• Additional traffic might be received in some cases after you perform IP PIM bidirectional toggling.
• The maximum TCAM scale for the IPv4 Multicast routing table is 4K. This restriction on scalability is
because of the hardware restriction of performing a single RPF check per TCAM entry. The number of
DFs and RPAs on the router determine the total TCAM requirements. For a bidirectional prefix, the
number of TCAM entries required is equal to “number of DF interfaces (for *, G/m prefix programming)”
plus “the number of inherited accept interfaces for the corresponding *, G prefix).

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 Bidirectional PIM or Bidirectional Multicast
Bidirectional Shared Tree

Bidirectional Shared Tree

In bidirectional mode, traffic is routed only along a bidirectional shared tree that is rooted at the RP for the
group. In bidir-PIM, the IP address of the RP acts as the key to having all routers establish a loop-free spanning
tree topology rooted in that IP address. This IP address need not be a router, but can be any unassigned IP
address on a network that is reachable throughout the PIM domain. This technique is the preferred configuration
method for establishing a redundant RP configuration for bidir-PIM.
Membership in a bidirectional group is signaled by way of explicit Join messages. Traffic from sources is
unconditionally sent up the shared tree toward the RP and passed down the tree toward the receivers on each
branch of the tree.
The figures below show the difference in state created per router for a unidirectional shared tree and source
tree versus a bidirectional shared tree.
Figure 1: Unidirectional Shared Tree and Source Tree

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Designated Forwarder

Figure 2: Bidirectional Shared Tree

For packets that are forwarded downstream from the RP toward receivers, there are no fundamental differences
between bidirectional PIM and PIM Sparse mode. Bidirectional PIM deviates substantially from PIM Sparse
mode for traffic that is passed from sources upstream toward the RP.
The feature allows traffic to be passed up the shared tree toward the RP. To avoid multicast packet looping,
bidirectional PIM introduces a new mechanism called Designated Forwarder (DF) election, which establishes
a loop-free SPT rooted at the RP.

Designated Forwarder
On every network segment and point-to-point link, all PIM routers participate in a procedure called Designated
Forwarder (DF) election. The procedure selects one router as the DF for every RP of bidirectional groups.
This router is responsible for forwarding multicast packets received on that network.
The DF election is based on unicast routing metrics. The router with the most preferred unicast routing metric
to the RP becomes the DF. Use of this method ensures that only one copy of every packet will be sent to the
RP, even if there are parallel equal-cost paths to the RP.
A DF is selected for every RP of bidirectional groups. As a result, multiple routers may be elected as DF on
any network segment, one for each RP. Any particular router may be elected as DF on more than one interface.

Bidirectional Group Tree Building

On a network that has local receivers, only the router elected as the DF populates the outgoing interface list
(olist) upon receiving Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Join messages, and sends (*, G) Join and
Leave messages upstream toward the RP. When a downstream router wishes to join the shared tree, the RPF
neighbor in the PIM Join and Leave messages is always the DF elected for the interface that lead to the RP.
When a router receives a Join or Leave message, and the router is not the DF for the receiving interface, the
message is ignored. Otherwise, the router updates the shared tree in the same way as in sparse mode.

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Packet Forwarding

In a network where all routers support bidirectional shared trees, (S, G) Join and Leave messages are ignored.
There is also no need to send PIM assert messages because the DF election procedure eliminates parallel
downstream paths from any RP. An RP never joins a path back to the source, nor will it send any register
stops.

Packet Forwarding
A router creates (*, G) entries only for bidirectional groups. The list of a (*, G) entry includes all the interfaces
for which the router has been elected DF and that have received either an IGMP or PIM Join message. If a
router is located on a sender-only branch, it will also create a (*, G) state, but the olist will not include any
interfaces.
If a packet is received from the RPF interface toward the RP, the packet is forwarded downstream according
to the olist of the (*, G) entry. Otherwise, only the router that is the DF for the receiving interface forwards
the packet upstream toward the RP; all other routers must discard the packet.

Configure Bidirectional PIM

To configure bidirectional PIM:
ip multicast-routing distributed

interface Loopback0
ip address 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255
ip ospf 100 area 0

interface GigabitEthernet0/2/1
ip address 30.1.1.3 255.255.255.0
ip pim sparse-mode
ip ospf 100 area 0
negotiation auto

interface GigabitEthernet0/2/4
ip address 100.2.1.2 255.255.255.0
ip pim sparse-mode
ip ospf 100 area 0
negotiation auto

router ospf 100

router-id 2.2.2.2

ip pim bidir-enable
ip pim rp-address 20.1.1.10 BIDIR-GROUPS bidir

ip access-list standard BIDIR-GROUPS

20 permit 225.0.0.0 0.255.255.255

Verification of Bidirectional PIM Configuration

Use the show ip mroute command to display the IP multicast routing table details.

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Verification of Bidirectional PIM Configuration

Router#show ip mroute
IP Multicast Routing Table
Flags: D - Dense, S - Sparse, B - Bidir Group, s - SSM Group, C - Connected,
L - Local, P - Pruned, R - RP-bit set, F - Register flag,
T - SPT-bit set, J - Join SPT, M - MSDP created entry, E - Extranet,
X - Proxy Join Timer Running, A - Candidate for MSDP Advertisement,
U - URD, I - Received Source Specific Host Report,
Z - Multicast Tunnel, z - MDT-data group sender,
Y - Joined MDT-data group, y - Sending to MDT-data group,
G - Received BGP C-Mroute, g - Sent BGP C-Mroute,
N - Received BGP Shared-Tree Prune, n - BGP C-Mroute suppressed,
Q - Received BGP S-A Route, q - Sent BGP S-A Route,
V - RD & Vector, v - Vector, p - PIM Joins on route,
x - VxLAN group, c - PFP-SA cache created entry,
* - determined by Assert, # - iif-starg configured on rpf intf,
e - encap-helper tunnel flag, l - LISP decap ref count contributor
Outgoing interface flags: H - Hardware switched, A - Assert winner, p - PIM Join
t - LISP transit group
Timers: Uptime/Expires
Interface state: Interface, Next-Hop or VCD, State/Mode

(*,225.0.0.0/8), 00:00:54/-, RP 20.1.1.10, flags: B

Bidir-Upstream: GigabitEthernet0/2/1, RPF nbr: 30.1.1.2
Incoming interface list:
GigabitEthernet0/2/4, Accepting/Sparse
GigabitEthernet0/2/1, Accepting/Sparse

(*, 225.1.1.1), 00:09:01/00:02:59, RP 20.1.1.10, flags: BC

Bidir-Upstream: GigabitEthernet0/2/1, RPF nbr 30.1.1.2
Outgoing interface list:
GigabitEthernet0/2/4, Forward/Sparse, 00:09:01/00:02:59, flags:
GigabitEthernet0/2/1, Bidir-Upstream/Sparse, 00:09:01/stopped, flags:

(*, 224.0.1.40), 00:14:12/00:02:05, RP 0.0.0.0, flags: DCL

Incoming interface: Null, RPF nbr 0.0.0.0
Outgoing interface list:
GigabitEthernet0/2/1, Forward/Sparse, 00:14:12/00:02:05, flags:

Use the show ip mfib command to display the forwarding entries and interfaces in the IPv4 Multicast
Forwarding Information Base (MFIB).
Router#show ip mfib
Entry Flags: C - Directly Connected, S - Signal, IA - Inherit A flag,
ET - Data Rate Exceeds Threshold, K - Keepalive
DDE - Data Driven Event, HW - Hardware Installed
ME - MoFRR ECMP entry, MNE - MoFRR Non-ECMP entry, MP - MFIB
MoFRR Primary, RP - MRIB MoFRR Primary, P - MoFRR Primary
MS - MoFRR Entry in Sync, MC - MoFRR entry in MoFRR Client,
e - Encap helper tunnel flag.
I/O Item Flags: IC - Internal Copy, NP - Not platform switched,
NS - Negate Signalling, SP - Signal Present,
A - Accept, F - Forward, RA - MRIB Accept, RF - MRIB Forward,
MA - MFIB Accept, A2 - Accept backup,
RA2 - MRIB Accept backup, MA2 - MFIB Accept backup

Forwarding Counts: Pkt Count/Pkts per second/Avg Pkt Size/Kbits per second
Other counts: Total/RPF failed/Other drops
I/O Item Counts: HW Pkt Count/FS Pkt Count/PS Pkt Count Egress Rate in pps
Default
(*,224.0.0.0/4) Flags: HW
SW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0
HW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0
(*,224.0.1.40) Flags: C HW
SW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0

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Support for MVPN Bidirectional PIM

HW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0

GigabitEthernet0/2/1 Flags: F IC NS
Pkts: 0/0/0 Rate: 0 pps
(*,225.0.0.0/8) Flags: HW
SW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0
HW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0
GigabitEthernet0/2/4 Flags: A
GigabitEthernet0/2/1 Flags: A F
Pkts: 0/0/0 Rate: 0 pps
Null0 Flags: A
(*,225.1.1.1) Flags: IA HW
SW Forwarding: 0/0/0/0, Other: 0/0/0
HW Forwarding: 530500/1000/64/500, Other: 0/0/0
GigabitEthernet0/2/4 Flags: F
Pkts: 0/0/0 Rate: 0 pps
GigabitEthernet0/2/1 Flags: F
Pkts: 0/0/0 Rate: 0 pps

Use the show ip pim neigh command to display the PIM neighbor table details.
Router#show ip pim neigh
PIM Neighbor Table
Mode: B - Bidir Capable, DR - Designated Router, N - Default DR Priority,
P - Proxy Capable, S - State Refresh Capable, G - GenID Capable,
L - DR Load-balancing Capable
Neighbor Interface Uptime/Expires Ver DR
Address Prio/Mode
30.1.1.2 GigabitEthernet0/2/1 00:18:19/00:01:38 v2 1 / B S P G

Use the show ip pim int df command to display the DF interfaces.

Router#show ip pim int df
* implies this system is the DF
Interface RP DF Winner Metric Uptime
GigabitEthernet0/2/1 20.1.1.10 30.1.1.2 0 00:17:24
GigabitEthernet0/2/4 20.1.1.10 *100.2.1.2 2 00:17:18

Support for MVPN Bidirectional PIM

Table 2: Feature History

Feature Name Release Information Description

Support for MVPN Bidirectional Cisco IOS XE Cupertino 17.9.1 This release extends the support of
PIM bidirectional PIM over MVPN.
This feature is only supported on
profile 1 MVPN or default MDT -
MLDP MP2MP - PIM C-mcast
signaling.
This feature is only supported on
Cisco RSP3 module.

Starting with Cisco IOS XE Cupertino Release 17.9.1, bidirectional PIM is supported over Multicast Label
Distribution Protocol (MLDP)-based MVPN. MLDP helps to transport traffic with label encapsulation over
an MPLS core network.

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Benefits of MVPN Bidirectional PIM

An MVPN profile is configured for the global context or per Virtual Routing/Forwarding (VRF). This feature
is only supported on profile 1 MVPN or default MDT - MLDP MP2MP - PIM C-mcast signaling.For more
information on MLDP-based MVPN configuration, see MLDP-Based MVPN.

Note Data MDTs can only be set up for (S,G) (Shortest Path Tree), and not for (*,G) (Shared Tree).

Benefits of MVPN Bidirectional PIM

• Enables the use of a single MPLS forwarding plane for both unicast and multicast traffic.
• Enables existing MPLS protection (for example, MPLS Traffic Engineering/Resource Reservation
Protocol (TE/RSVP link protection) and MPLS Operations Administration and Maintenance (OAM)
mechanisms to be used for multicast traffic.

Restrictions for MVPN Bidirectional PIM

This feature is only supported on MVPN profile 1.

Prerequisites for MVPN Bidirectional PIM

• You should be familiar with bidirectional PIM configurations.
• You should configure basic native multicast configurations including PIM configurations.

Configure MVPN Bidirectional PIM

To configure MVPN bidirectional PIM:
1. Enable Bidirectional PIM for VRF:
ip pim vrf cu1 rp-address 20.1.1.10 BIDIR-GROUPS bidir
vrf definition cu1
rd 1:1
vpn id 1:1
!
address-family ipv4
mdt default mpls mldp 2.2.2.2
route-target export 1:1
route-target import 1:1
exit-address-family
no mpls mldp forwarding recursive
ip multicast-routing vrf cu1 distributed
interface Loopback0
ip address 5.5.5.5 255.255.255.255
ip ospf 1 area 0
!
interface Loopback1
vrf forwarding cu1
ip address 55.55.55.55 255.255.255.255

ip access-list standard BIDIR-GROUPS

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Verification for MVPN Bidirectional PIM Configuration

10 permit 226.1.1.1
20 permit 225.0.0.0 0.255.255.255
interface GigabitEthernet0/3/4
vrf forwarding cu1
ip address 100.51.1.2 255.255.255.0
ip pim sparse-mode
ip ospf 100 area 0
negotiation auto
router bgp 100
address-family ipv4 vrf cu1
redistribute connected
redistribute ospf 100
exit-address-family
ip pim bidir-enable

• Enable Static RP with ACL:

ip access-list standard BIDIR-GROUPS
permit 226.1.1.1
permit 225.0.0.0 0.255.255.255

Verification for MVPN Bidirectional PIM Configuration

Use the show ip pim vrf cu1 interface df command to verify the Designated Forwarder (DF) configuration.
Router#show ip pim vrf cu1 interface df
Interface RP DF Winner Metric Uptime
GigabitEthernet0/2/5 20.1.1.10 0.0.0.0 0 00:00:00
Lspvif1 20.1.1.10 *10.0.0.1 0 2d10h

Use the show ip pim vrf cu1 rp mapping command to verify PIM group to RP mapping configuration.
Router#show ip pim vrf cu1 rp mapping

Acl: SPARSE-GROUPS, Static

RP: 11.11.11.11 (?)
Acl: BIDIR-GROUPS, Static, Bidir Mode
RP: 20.1.1.10 (?)
ASR907_2039#

Use the show ip mroute vrf cu1 command to verify bidirectional PIM configuration for VRF.
Router#show ip mroute vrf cu1
(*,226.0.0.0/8), 2d11h/-, RP 20.1.1.10, flags: B
Bidir-Upstream: GigabitEthernet0/2/5, RPF nbr: 20.1.1.10
Incoming interface list:
Lspvif1, Accepting/Sparse
GigabitEthernet0/2/5, Accepting/Sparse
(*,225.0.0.0/8), 2d11h/-, RP 20.1.1.10, flags: B
Bidir-Upstream: GigabitEthernet0/2/5, RPF nbr: 20.1.1.10
Incoming interface list:
Lspvif1, Accepting/Sparse
GigabitEthernet0/2/5, Accepting/Sparse

(*, 224.0.1.40), 2d11h/00:02:08, RP 0.0.0.0, flags: DCL

Incoming interface: Null, RPF nbr 0.0.0.0
Outgoing interface list:
GigabitEthernet0/2/5, Forward/Sparse, 2d11h/00:02:08, flags:
Router#

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Verification for MVPN Bidirectional PIM Configuration

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