Unit III

MULTICAST ADDRESS & ROUTING

 Overview
• One-to-many (source specific multicast)
– Radio station broadcast
– Transmitting news, stock-price
– Software updates to multiple hosts
• Many-to-many (any source multicast)
– Multimedia teleconferencing
– Online multi-player games
– Distributed simulations
 Overview
• Without support for multicast
– A source needs to send a separate packet with the
identical data to each member of the group
• This redundancy consumes more bandwidth
• Redundant traffic is not evenly distributed, concentrated near
the sending host
– Source needs to keep track of the IP address of each
member in the group
• Group may be dynamic
• To support many-to-many and one-to-many IP
provides an IP-level multicast
 Overview
• Basic IP multicast model is many-to-many based on
multicast groups
– Each group has its own IP multicast address
– Hosts that are members of a group receive copies of any
packets sent to that group’s multicast address
– A host can be in multiple groups
– A host can join and leave groups
 Overview
• Using IP multicast to send the identical packet to
each member of the group
– A host sends a single copy of the packet addressed to the
group’s multicast address
– The sending host does not need to know the individual
unicast IP address of each member
– Sending host does not send multiple copies of the packet
 Overview
• IP’s original many-to-many multicast has been
supplemented with support for a form of one-to-
many multicast
• One-to-many multicast
– Source specific multicast (SSM)
– A receiving host specifies both a multicast group and a
specific sending host
• Many-to-many model
– Any source multicast (ASM)
 Overview
• A host signals its desire to join or leave a multicast
group by communicating with its local router using
a special protocol
– In IPv4, the protocol is Internet Group Management
Protocol (IGMP)
– In IPv6, the protocol is Multicast Listener Discovery
(MLD)
• The router has the responsibility for making
multicast behave correctly with regard to the host
 Unicasting

In unicast routing, the router forwards

the received packet through

only one of its interfaces.

 Multicasting

In multicast routing,
the router may forward the
received packet
through several of its interfaces.
 Multicasting versus multiple unicasting

Emulation of multicasting through

multiple unicasting is not
efficient and may
create long delays,
particularly with a large group.
 Multicast Routing
• A router’s unicast forwarding tables indicate for any IP
address, which link to use to forward the unicast packet
• To support multicast, a router must additionally have
multicast forwarding tables that indicate, based on
multicast address, which links to use to forward the
multicast packet
• Unicast forwarding tables collectively specify a set of
paths
• Multicast forwarding tables collectively specify a set of
trees
– Multicast distribution trees
 Multicast Routing
• To support source specific multicast, the multicast
forwarding tables must indicate which links to use
based on the combination of multicast address and
the unicast IP address of the source

• Multicast routing is the process by which multicast

distribution trees are determined
In unicast routing, each router in the domain has a table that defines
a shortest path tree to possible destinations.
Shortest path tree in unicast routing
In multicast routing, each involved router needs to construct
a shortest path tree for each group.
Source-based tree approach
In the source-based tree approach, each router needs to have one
shortest path tree for each group.
Group-shared tree approach
In the group-shared tree approach, only the core router, which has a
shortest path tree for each group, is involved in multicasting.
Multicast Protocols
 DVMRP
• Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol.
• Sharing of routing tables with the neighboring routers are
not possible here.
• Each router have to create routing table from the scratch.
Based on the information of the unicast routing.
• This can be achieved in 4 methods:
– Flooding
– Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF)
– Reverse Path Broadcasting (RPB)
– Reverse Path Multicasting (RPM)
 Distance-Vector Multicast (DVMRP)
• Flood and prune protocols.
• Each router already knows that shortest path to source
S goes through router N.
• When receive multicast packet from S, forward on all
outgoing links (except the one on which the packet
arrived), if only if the packet arrived over the link is
shortest path to S.
• Major shortcomings:
– 1. Floods the network - no provision for avoiding LANs that
have no members in the multicast group.
– 2. given packet will be forwarded over a LAN by each of
routers connected to that LAN. (flooding strategy)
 Distance-Vector Multicast (DVMRP)
• Eliminate duplicate broadcast packets by only letting
– One router as – “parent” router for each link (relative to
S) – only parent router is allowed to forward multicast
packets from the S over LAN
• router that has shortest path to S (learn via distance
vector) selected as parent
• smallest address to break ties
• Router learn can learn if it is parent based upon DVR
messages it exchanges with its neighbors.
 Distance-Vector Multicast
Reverse Path Broadcast (RPB) – Reverse Path forwarding
• Path is reverse – we are considering shortest path toward the
source when making forward decisions.
• Goal: Cut off ---branches networks that have no hosts in group
G
• Step 1: Determine of LAN is a leaf with no members in G
– If a parent is only router on the LAN, then the network is leaf
– determine if any hosts are members of G using IGMP
• Step 2: Propagate “no members of G here” information
– <Destination, Cost> update sent to neighbors with set of groups
for which this network is interested in receiving multicast packets.
– only happens when multicast address becomes active.
 Reverse path Forwarding (RPF)
• In this method the packets
are sent only to the
shortest path.
• This shortest path
information is obtained
from the unicast routing
tables.
• The router will not
forward the table if the
source address and
destination address are
same. (in case of receiving
multiple copies)
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
Reverse Path Broadcasting
Prevent Duplication in RPF
 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
 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.
RPF, RPB and RPM
RPM adds pruning and grafting to RPB
to create a multicast shortest
path tree that supports
dynamic membership changes.
 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)
• Developed to address the scaling problems with
previous multicast routing protocols.
• Eg. Broadcasting traffic to all routers until they
explicitly ask to be removed from distribution not a
good design choice.
• PIM – divides the problem space – Sparse mode (SM)
and Dense mode (DM) - (proportion of routers that
will want the multicast).
• PIM – DM – uses flood-and –prune algorithm (like
DVMRP suffers the same)
 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)
• PIM-SM – routers explicitly join the multicast
distribution tree – PIM join message. (DVMRP – create
the broadcast tree first and then cut down the un
interested routers)
• Join message is sent by assigned special router –
Rendezvous point (RP)
• Assume all routers in the domain know the unicast IP
address of RP for a given group.
• Multicast forwarding tree is built – by join messages
sent by routers to RP.
 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)
• PIM - SM – two types of tress: shared trees (used by
all senders), Source specific tree – used by specific
sending host.
• Normal mode of operation: create shared tree first then
one or more source specific trees.
• Eg.(Diagram (a) – next slide)Each router along the path
looks the join and creates a forwarding table entry for
shared tree (*, G) –looks the interface of join arrived
and marks in the table.
 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)

Shared Tree
Source specific
tree
 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)

Delivery of a packet along a shared tree. R1 tunnels

the packet to the RP, which forwards it along the
shared tree to R4 and R5.(b of previous slide)
 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)
• (Dia. c) In case of BW inefficiency and processing cost of
encapsulation to RP – RP forces to avoid tunnelling by
sending join message.
• R3 learns about this from Join message to the group, DR
will send the packet to the group as native (not tunnelled)
multicast packets.
• Join message sent by R4 & R5 applied to all senders.
• New Join- create sender-specific state in routers b/w
identified source and RP. (S,G)
• (Dia. d)- R4 send source specific join toward the source –
follows the shortest path toward the source, router s along
the way create (S,G) state for this tree- root as source rather
than RP.
 Summary
• DVMRP
• PIM DM
• PIM SM