2

IP Multicast Distribution
Trees and Control
Protocols
Overview
This lesson represents an entry point to IP multicast services, presents the
functional model of IP multicasting and gives an overview of technologies present
in IP multicasting. The student will grasp the idea of IP multicasting, its benefits
and associated caveats, determine various types of multicast applications, and gain
an understanding of the IP multicast conceptual model and its implementation
prerequisites.
Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter, the student will be able to:
n List the functions performed with a multicast-enabled network
n Identify the types of multicast distribution trees and the way they are built
n Explain various multicast routing protocols and their place in different network
/ application environments
n Identify the protocols for group membership reporting
2-2 IP Multicast Technology Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Functions of Multicast Enabled Networks
Objectives
Upon completion of this section, the student will be able to:
n Identify the functions of multicast-enabled routers
n Explain how multicast data is forwarded loop free to receiver segments
n Determine methods for scoping multicast streams
Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-3
© 2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. www.cisco.com IP Multicast Primer Chapter2 Page5
Multicast Forwarding
Multicast Forwarding
•Multicast Routing works the opposite

• The routing table for unicast is checked against the
“source” address in the multicast datagram
• If the datagram arrived on the interface specified in
the routing table for the source address:
– The RPF check succeeds
– Otherwise, the RPF Check failsWhen a router receives a multicast packet, it checks its routing tables (usually
unicast) to see if the interface the packet came from provides the shortest path
back to the source. If the interface provides the shortest path to the source, the
router will forward the packet. Otherwise, if the multicast packet is received from
some other interface that does not provide the shortest path to the source, it’s
silently discarded.
This mechanism that multicast routing utilizes is called Reverse Path Forwarding
(RPF). RPF ensures that multicast packets will follow the shortest path from the
source to the receivers and that there will be no loops on that path.

Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-5
© 2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. www.cisco.com IP Multicast Primer Chapter2 Page7
Reverse Path Forwarding (cont.)
Reverse Path Forwarding (cont.)
•Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) Check:
• If the RPF check succeeds, the datagram
is forwarded
• If the RPF check fails, the datagram
is typically silently discarded
• When a datagram is forwarded, it is sent out
of each interface in the outgoing interface
list


Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-7 Let’s take a closer look at a failed RPF check.
The router in our slide receives a multicast packet from source 151.10.3.21 on
interface S0. The router performs the RPF check by looking into the unicast
routing table. The unicast routing table indicates that interface S1 is the shortest
path to the network 151.10.0.0/16. Because interface S0 is not the shortest path to
the network from which the packet from the source 151.10.3.21 came from, the
RPF check fails and the packet is discarded.

2-8 IP Multicast Technology Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. Now let’s take a closer look at a successful RPF check.
The router in our slide receives a multicast packet from source 151.10.3.21 on
interface S1. The router performs the RPF check by looking into the unicast
routing table. The unicast routing table indicates that interface S1 is the shortest
path to the network 151.10.0.0/16. Since interface S1 is the shortest path to the
network from which the packet from the source 151.10.3.21 came from, the RPF
check succeeds and the packet is forwarded on every interface in OIL. In our
example, OIL for current multicast packet consists of interfaces S2 and E0, so the
packet is forwarded on interfaces S2 and E0.

Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-9 An RPF check is always done with respect to the incoming interface – the RPF
interface. The RPF check will succeed if the incoming interface is the shortest

interface doesn’t have any TTL Threshold set.
The router receives a multicast packet with TTL 24 on an interface S0. The TTL
is first decremented by the normal router IP packet processing to 23. Before
sending the packet on all interfaces in the OIL, the router checks for TTL
Thresholds set on those interfaces.
Note In the example we assume that RPF-check succeeded on the interface S0.
Since the TTL Threshold on interfaces S1 (TTL Threshold=16) and E0 (TTL
Threshold=0) is less than TTL of the multicast packet, the packet is forwarded.
Interface S2 has the TTL Threshold set to 64, which is greater than TTL of the
multicast packet, so the packet is not forwarded over interface S2.

2-12 IP Multicast Technology Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. In the example above, the Engineering or Marketing departments can prevent
department- related multicast traffic from leaving their network by using a TTL of
16 for their multicast sessions – hence their sources have to send all the multicast
traffic with a TTL less than or equal to 16.
Similarly, Company ABC can prevent private multicast traffic from leaving their
network by using a TTL of 128 for their multicast sessions.

Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-13 Although TTL Scoping looks easy to implement, there are many problems with it.
If we use TTL Scoping with broadcast and prune multicast protocols, the router,
which discards the packet, will not be able to prune any upstream source. It is also
impossible to configure overlapping zones with TTL Scoping.
Address Scoping allows the multicast boundaries to be established per group
address and is much more flexible than TTL Scoping. The multicast traffic that

n Distinguish between source-rooted and shared distribution trees
n Identify the meaning of “push” and “pull” models and their association with
dense and sparse mode multicast protocols
Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-17 Multicast Distribution Trees define the path from the source to receivers over
which the multicast traffic flows.
There are two types of Multicast Distribution Trees— Source-rooted or Shortest
Path Trees and Shared Trees.
In the case of a Source rooted tree, a separate tree is built for each source to all
members of its group. Because the Source rooted tree takes a direct, or shortest,
path from source to its receivers, it is also called Shortest Path Tree (SPT).
Shared tree protocols create multicast forwarding paths that rely on a central
“core” router that serves as a rendezvous point between multicast sources and
destinations. Sources initially send their multicast packets to the rendezvous point,
which, in turn, forwards data via a shared tree to the members of the group. A
shared tree is less efficient than a SPT (paths between the source and receivers
are not necessary the shortest), but it is less demanding on routers (memory,
CPU).
There are basically two types of multicast routing protocols. Dense mode protocols
flood multicast traffic to all parts of the network and prune back the flows where
there are no receivers using a periodic flood and prune mechanism. Sparse mode
protocols use an explicit join mechanism where distribution trees are built on
demand by explicit tree join messages sent by routers that have directly connected
receivers.

2-18 IP Multicast Technology Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. In this example of a Shared Distribution Tree, we can see that sources Source1
and Source2 are sending multicast packets towards a Rendezvous Point via Source
Path Trees, and, from the Rendezvous Point, the multicast packets are flowing via
a Shared Distribution Tree towards receivers Receiver1 and Receiver2.

2-22 IP Multicast Technology Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. The multicast forwarding entries that appear in multicast forwarding tables can be
read in the following way: (S, G) – for the source S sending to the group G; those
entries typically reflect the shortest path tree but may also appear on a shared tree.
(*, G) – for any source (*) sending to the group G; those entries reflect the shared
tree, but are also created (in Cisco routers) for any existing (S, G) entry.

Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Multicast Distribution Trees and Control Protocols 2-23 Shortest Path Tree state entries use more router memory because there is an entry
for each sender and group pair, but the traffic is sent over the optimal path to each
receiver ,thus minimizing the delay in packet delivery.
Shared Distribution Tree state entries consume less router memory, but we might
get sub-optimal paths from a source to receivers, thus introducing extra delay in
packet delivery.

2-24 IP Multicast Technology Copyright  2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. Dense Mode protocols implement the “PUSH” model for multicast data delivery.