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

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 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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