One document matched: draft-ietf-idmr-dvmrp-v3-02.txt
Differences from draft-ietf-idmr-dvmrp-v3-01.txt
T. Pusateri
INTERNET DRAFT Juniper Networks
Obsoletes: RFC 1075 July 1996
draft-ietf-idmr-dvmrp-v3-02 Expires: January 1997
Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
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Abstract
DVMRP is an Internet routing protocol that provides an efficient
mechanism for connectionless datagram delivery to a group of hosts
across an internetwork. It is a distributed protocol that dynamically
generates IP multicast delivery trees using a technique called
Reverse Path Multicasting (RPM) [Deer90]. This document is an update
to Version 1 of the protocol specified in RFC 1075 [Wait88].
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1. Introduction
1.1. Reverse Path Multicasting
Datagrams follow multicast delivery trees from a source to all
members of a multicast group [Deer89], replicating the packet only at
necessary branches in the delivery tree. The trees are calculated and
updated dynamically to track the membership of individual groups.
When a datagram arrives on an interface, the reverse path to the
source of the datagram is determined by examining a unicast routing
table of known source networks. If the datagram arrives on an
interface that would be used to transmit unicast datagrams back to
the source, then it is forwarded to the appropriate list of
downstream interfaces. Otherwise, it is not on the optimal delivery
tree and should be discarded. In this way duplicate packets can be
filtered when loops exist in the network topology. The source
specific delivery trees are automatically pruned back as group
membership changes or leaf routers determine that no group members
are present. This keeps the delivery trees to the minimum branches
necessary to reach all of the group members. New sections of the tree
can also be added dynamically as new members join the multicast group
by grafting the new sections onto the delivery trees.
1.2. IP-IP Tunnels
Because not all IP routers support native multicast routing, DVMRP
includes direct support for tunneling IP Multicast datagrams through
routers. The IP Multicast datagrams are encapsulated in unicast IP
packets and addressed to the routers that do support native multicast
routing. DVMRP treats tunnel interfaces in an identical manner to
physical network interfaces. More information on encapsulated tunnels
can be found in [Perk96].
1.3. Document Overview
Section 2 provides an overview of the protocol and the different
message types exchanged by DVMRP routers. Those who wish to gain a
general understanding of the protocol but are not interested in the
more precise details may wish to only read this section. Section 3
explains the detailed operation of the protocol to accommodate
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developers needing to provide interoperable implementations.
Included in Appendix A, is a summary of the DVMRP parameters. A
section on DVMRP support for tracing and troubleshooting is the topic
of Appendix B. Finally, a short DVMRP version compatibility section
is provided in Appendix C to assist with backward compatibility
issues.
2. Protocol Overview
DVMRP can be summarized as a "broadcast & prune" multicast routing
protocol. It performs Reverse Path Forwarding checks to determine
when multicast traffic should be forwarded to downstream interfaces.
In this way, minimum spanning trees can be formed to reach all group
members from each source network of multicast traffic.
2.1. Neighbor Discovery
Neighbor DVMRP routers can be discovered dynamically by sending
Neighbor Probe Messages on all of the local multicast capable network
interfaces. These messages are sent periodically to the All-DVMRP-
Routers IP Multicast group address. This address falls into the range
of IP Multicast addresses that are to remain on the locally attached
IP network and therefore are not forwarded by multicast routers.
Beginning with Version 3 of DVMRP outlined in this document, each
Neighbor Probe message should contain the list of Neighbor DVMRP
routers for which Neighbor Probe messages have been received. In this
way, Neighbor DVMRP routers can ensure that they are seen by each
other. Care must be taken to interoperate with older implementations
of DVMRP that do not include this list of neighbors. It can be
assumed that older implementations of DVMRP will safely ignore this
list of neighbors in the Probe message. Therefore, it is not
necessary to send both old and new types of Neighbor Probes.
2.2. Source Location
When an IP Multicast datagram is received by a router running DVMRP,
it first looks up the interface of the unicast route back to the
source of the datagram. This interface is called the upstream
interface. If the datagram arrived on the correct upstream interface,
then it is a candidate for forwarding to one or more downstream
interfaces. If the datagram did not arrive on the anticipated
upstream interface, it is discarded. This check is known as a reverse
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path forwarding check and must be performed by all DVMRP routers.
In order to ensure that all DVMRP routers have a consistent view of
the unicast path back to a source, a unicast routing table is
propagated to all DVMRP routers as an integral part of the protocol.
Each router advertises the network number and mask of the interfaces
it is directly connected to as well as relaying the routes received
from neighbor routers. DVMRP allows for an interface metric to be
configured on all physical and tunnel interfaces. When a route is
received, the metric of the upstream interface over which the
datagram was received must be added to the metric of the route being
propagated. This adjusted metric should be computed before the route
is compared to the metric of the current next hop gateway. As is
customary with distance vector routing protocols, split horizon
should be applied to the route propagation policy in order to prevent
advertising a route to a destination over the interface from which it
was received.
Although there is certainly additional overhead associated with
propagating a separate unicast routing table, it does provide two
nice features. First, since all DVMRP routers are using the same
unicast routing protocol, there are no inconsistencies between
routers when determining the upstream interface (aside from normal
convergence issues related to distance vector routing protocols). By
placing the burden of synchronization on the protocol as opposed to
the network manager, DVMRP reduces the risk of creating routing loops
or blackholes due to disagreement between neighbor routers on the
upstream interface.
Second, by propagating its own unicast routing table, DVMRP makes it
convenient to have separate paths for unicast vs. multicast
datagrams. Although, ideally, many network managers would prefer to
keep their unicast and multicast traffic aligned, tunneled multicast
topologies may prevent this causing the unicast and multicast paths
to diverge. Additionally, service providers may prefer to keep the
unicast and multicast traffic separate for routing policy reasons as
they experiment with IP multicast routing and begin to offer it as a
service. For these benefits, DVMRP has chosen to accept the
additional overhead of propagating unicast routes.
2.3. Dependent Downstream Routers
In addition to providing a consistent view of source networks, the
exchange of unicast routes in DVMRP provides one other important
feature. DVMRP uses the unicast route exchange as a mechanism for
upstream routers to determine if any downstream routers depend on
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them for forwarding from particular source networks. DVMRP
accomplishes this by using a well known technique called "Poison
Reverse". If a downstream router selects an upstream router as the
best next hop to a particular source network, this is indicated by
echoing back the route to the upstream router with a metric equal to
the original metric plus infinity. When the upstream router receives
the report and sees a metric that lies between infinity and twice
infinity, it can then add the downstream router from which it
received the report to a list of dependent routers for this source.
This list of dependent routers per source network built by the
"Poison Reverse" technique will provide the foundation necessary to
determine when it is appropriate to prune back the IP source specific
multicast trees.
2.4. Building Multicast Trees
As previously mentioned, when an IP multicast datagram arrives, the
upstream interface is determined by looking up the interface that
would be used if a datagram was being sent back to the source of the
datagram. If the upstream interface is correct, then a DVMRP router
will forward the datagram to a list of downstream interfaces.
2.4.1. Adding Leaf Networks
Initially, the DVMRP router must consider all of the remaining IP
multicast capable interfaces (including tunnels) on the router. If
the downstream interface under consideration is a leaf network (has
no other IP multicast routers on it), then the IGMP local group
database must be consulted. DVMRP routers can easily determine if a
directly attached network is a leaf network by keeping a list of all
routers from which DVMRP Router Probe messages have been received on
the interface. Obviously, it is necessary to refresh this list and
age out entries received from routers that are no longer being
refreshed. The IGMP local group database is maintained by an elected
IP multicast router on each physical, multicast capable network. The
details of the election procedure are discussed in section 3. If the
destination group address is listed in the local group database, then
the interface should be included in the list of downstream
interfaces. If there are no group members on the interface, then the
interface can be pruned from the candidate list.
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2.4.2. Adding Non-Leaf Networks
Initially, all non-leaf networks should be included in the downstream
interface list when a forwarding cache entry is first being created.
This allows all downstream routers to be aware of traffic destined
for a particular (source, group) pair. The downstream routers will
then have the option to prune and graft this (source, group) pair to
and from the multicast delivery tree as requirements change from
their downstream routers and local group members.
2.5. Pruning Multicast Trees
As mentioned above, routers at the edges with leaf networks will
prune their leaf interfaces that have no group members associated
with an IP multicast datagram. If a router prunes all of its
downstream interfaces, it can notify the upstream router that it no
longer wants traffic destined for a particular (source, group) pair.
This is accomplished by sending a DVMRP Prune message upstream to the
router it expects to forward datagrams from a particular source.
Recall that a downstream router will inform an upstream router that
it depends on the upstream router to receive datagrams from
particular source networks by using the "Poison Reverse" technique
during the exchange of unicast routes. This method allows the
upstream router to build a list of downstream routers on each
interface that are dependent upon it for datagrams from a particular
source network. If the upstream router receives prune messages from
each one of the dependent downstream routers on an interface, then
the upstream router can in turn prune this interface from its
downstream interface list. If the upstream router is able to prune
all of its downstream interfaces in this way, it can then send a
DVMRP Prune message to its upstream router. This continues until the
minimum tree necessary to reach all of the receivers remains. Since
IP multicast routers may be restarted at any time and lose state
information about existing prunes, it is necessary to limit the life
of a prune and periodically resume the flooding procedure. This will
reinitiate the prune mechanism and the cycle will continue. When a
router decides to prune one of its downstream interfaces, it will set
a timer to indicate the lifetime of the prune. If all of its
downstream interfaces become pruned off the multicast delivery tree
and a DVMRP Prune message is sent upstream, the lifetime of the prune
will be equal to the minimum of the remaining lifetimes of the pruned
interfaces.
Pruning downstream interfaces is also necessary to prevent duplicate
packets from arriving on a multi-access network when there are
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parallel paths back to a source. Since the routers use the "Poison
Reverse" technique during unicast route exchange, they will establish
which router will forward multicast traffic to the shared network and
prune the appropriate downstream interfaces based on the metrics of
the unicast routes exchanged.
2.6. Grafting Multicast Trees
Once a tree branch has been pruned from a multicast delivery tree,
packets from the pruned (source, group) pair will no longer be
forwarded. There are two different ways for packets from the
(source, group) pair to be forwarded again. First, since IP multicast
supports dynamic group membership, new hosts may join the multicast
group. In this case, DVMRP routers will need a mechanism to undo the
prunes that are in place from the host back to the first branch that
was pruned from the multicast tree. This is accomplished with a
DVMRP Graft message. A router will send a Graft message to its
upstream neighbor if a group join occurs for a group that currently
has pruned sources. Separate Graft messages must be sent to the
appropriate upstream neighbor for each source that has been pruned.
Since there would be no way to tell if a Graft message sent upstream
was lost or the source simply quit sending traffic, it is necessary
to acknowledge each Graft message with a DVMRP Graft Ack message. If
an acknowledgment is not received within a Graft Time-out period, the
Graft message should be retransmitted. Duplicate Graft Ack messages
should simply be ignored. Second, if the prune interval expires, the
negative cache entries are removed and the packets will automatically
be forwarded again. This is a necessary feature since routers may be
restarted and lose all prune state information or new routers may
appear. Since these routers will not have prune state associated
with the (source, group) pair, they will not realize that a DVMRP
Graft message is necessary if a new host joins the group. Therefore,
by periodically timing out the prunes and re-flooding the traffic,
any new or restarted routers can have their prune state periodically
refreshed.
3. Detailed Protocol Operation
This section contains a detailed description of DVMRP. It covers
sending and receiving of DVMRP messages as well as the generation and
maintenance of IP Multicast forwarding cache entries.
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3.1. Protocol Header
DVMRP packets are encapsulated in IP datagrams, with an IP protocol
number of 2 (IGMP) as specified in the Assigned Numbers RFC. All
fields are transmitted in Network Byte Order. DVMRP packets use a
common protocol header that specifies the IGMP [Fenn96] Packet Type
as hexadecimal 0x13 (DVMRP). A diagram of the common protocol header
follows:
0 8 16 23
+---------+----------+--------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | | |
+---------+----------+----------+---------+
|Reserved | Capabil- | Minor | Major |
| | ities | Version |Version |
+---------+----------+----------+---------+
Figure 1 - Common Protocol Header
The value of the Code field determines the DVMRP packet type.
Currently, there are codes allocated for DVMRP protocol message types
as well as protocol analysis and troubleshooting packets. The
protocol message Codes are:
Code Packet Type Description
----------------------------------------------------------------
1 DVMRP Probe for neighbor discovery
2 DVMRP Report for unicast route exchange
7 DVMRP Prune for pruning multicast delivery trees
8 DVMRP Graft for grafting multicast delivery trees
9 DVMRP Graft Ack for acknowledging graft messages
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table 1 - Standard Protocol Packet Types
There are additional codes used for protocol analysis and
troubleshooting. These codes are discussed in Appendix B. The
Checksum is the 16-bit one's complement of the one's complement sum
of the DVMRP message. The checksum of the DVMRP message should be
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calculated with the checksum field set to zero.
3.2. Probe Messages
When a DVMRP router is configured to run on an physical interface, it
sends local IP Multicast discovery packets to inform other DVMRP
routers that it is operational. These discovery packets are called
DVMRP Probes and they serve three purposes.
1. Probes provide a mechanism for DVMRP routers to locate each other.
DVMRP sends a list of detected neighbors in the Probe message.
This list of DVMRP neighbors provides a foundation for neighbor
prune list. If no DVMRP neighbors are found, the network is
considered to be a leaf network. A DVMRP router should discard all
other protocol packets from a neighbor until it seen its own
address in the neighbors Probe list.
2. They provide a way for DVMRP routers to determine the capabilities
of each other. This may be deduced from the major and minor
version numbers in the Probe packet or directly from the
capability flags. These flags were first introduced to allow
optional protocol features. This specification now mandates the
use of Generation IDs and pruning and, therefore, provides no
optional capabilities. Other capability flags were used for
tracing and troubleshooting and are no longer a part of the actual
protocol. These are now defined in an appendix.
3. Probes provide a keep-alive function in order to quickly detect
neighbor loss. DVMRP probes sent on each multicast capable
interface configured for DVMRP SHOULD have an interval of 10
seconds. The neighbor time-out interval SHOULD be set at 140
seconds. This allows fairly early detection of a lost neighbor yet
provides tolerance for busy multicast routers. These values MUST
be coordinated between all DVMRP routers on a physical network
segment.
3.2.1. Router Capabilities
In the past, there have been many versions of DVMRP in use with a
wide range of capabilities. Practical considerations require a
current implementation to interoperate with these older
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implementations that don't formally specify their capabilities and
are not compliant with this specification. For instance, for major
versions less than 3, it can be assumed that the neighbor does not
support pruning. The formal capability flags were first introduced
in an well known implementation (Mrouted version 3.5) in an attempt
to take the guess work out which features are supported by a
neighbor. These flags are no longer necessary since they are now a
required part of the protocol, however, special consideration is
necessary to not confuse older implementations that expect these
flags to be set. Appendix C was written to assist with these and
other backward compatibility issues. Only two of the flags were used
for actual protocol operation. The other two assigned flags were used
for troubleshooting purposes which are now documented in a separate
specification [x]. All of the bits marked "U" in the Figure below are
unused. They may be defined in the future and MUST be set to 0. Bit
positions 1 and 2 MUST be set to 1 for backward compatibility. They
were used to specify the PRUNE and GENID bits which are now required
features.
0 8 9 10 M G P L
+--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| Reserved | U | U | U | U | U | 1 | 1 | U |
+--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
Figure 2 - Probe Capability Flags
3.2.2. Generation ID
If a DVMRP router is restarted, it must immediately exchange unicast
routing tables with all of its neighbors. If a neighbor doesn't
automatically detect that the neighbor has restarted, then it will
not send its entire routing table immediately. Instead, it will
spread the updates over an entire routing update interval. In order
for the neighbor to detect a router that is restarted, a non-
decreasing number is placed in the periodic probe message called the
generation ID. If a router detects an increase in the generation ID
of a neighbor, it should exchange its entire unicast routing table
with the neighbor. A time of day clock provides a good source for a
non-decreasing 32 bit integer.
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3.2.3. Neighbor Addresses
As a DVMRP router sees Probe messages from its DVMRP neighbors, it
records the neighbor addresses on each interface and places them in
the Probe message sent on the particular interface. This allows the
neighbor router to know that its probes have been received by the
sending router.
3.2.4. Probe Packet Format
The Probe packet is variable in length depending on the number of
neighbor IP addresses included. The length of the IP packet can be
used to determine the number of neighbors in the Probe message. The
current Major Version is 3. To maintain compatibility with previous
versions, implementations of Version 3 must include pruning and
grafting of multicast trees. Non-pruning implementations SHOULD NOT
be implemented at this time. A Minor Version of 0xFF should be used
to indicate compliance with this specification.
7 15 23 31
+---------+--------------+--------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | (0x1) | |
+---------+--------------+----------+---------+
|Reserved | Capabilities | Minor | Major |
+---------+--------------+----------+---------+
| Generation ID |
+---------------------------------------------+
| Neighbor IP Address 1 |
+---------------------------------------------+
| Neighbor IP Address 2 |
+---------------------------------------------+
| ... |
+---------------------------------------------+
| Neighbor IP Address N |
+---------------------------------------------+
Figure 3 - DVMRP Probe Packet Format
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3.2.5. Designated Router Election
Since it is wasteful to have more than a single router sending IGMP
Host Membership Queries on a given physical network, a single router
on each physical network is elected as the Designated Querier. This
election used to be a part of DVMRP. However, this is now handled as
a part of the IGMP protocol in version 2 and later. Therefore, DVMRP
Version 3 requires the use of IGMP Version 2 or later specifying that
the Designated Querier election is performed as a part of IGMP.
3.3. Building Forwarding Cache Entries
In order to create optimal multicast delivery trees, IP Multicast was
designed to keep separate forwarding cache entries for each (source
network, destination group) pair. Because the possible combinations
of these is quite large, forwarding cache entries are generated on
demand as data arrives at a multicast router. Since the IP forwarding
decision is made on a hop by hop basis (as with the unicast case), it
is imperative that each multicast router has a consistent view of the
reverse path back to the source network. For this reason, DVMRP
includes its own unicast routing protocol.
3.3.1. Determining the upstream interface
When a multicast packet arrives, a DVMRP router will use the internal
DVMRP unicast routing table to determine which interface leads back
to the source. If the packet did not arrive on that interface, it
should be discarded without further processing. Each multicast
forwarding entry should cache the upstream interface for a particular
source host or source network after looking this up in the DVMRP
unicast routing table.
3.3.2. Determining the downstream interface list
The downstream interface list is built from the remaining list of
multicast capable interfaces. Any interfaces designated as leaf
networks and do not have members of the particular multicast group
can be automatically pruned from list of downstream interfaces. The
remaining interfaces will either have downstream DVMRP routers or
directly attached group members. These interfaces may be pruned in
the future if it is determined that there are no group members
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anywhere along the entire tree branch.
3.4. Unicast Route Exchange
It was mentioned earlier that since not all IP routers support IP
multicast forwarding, it is necessary to tunnel IP multicast
datagrams through these routers. One effect of using these
encapsulated tunnels is that IP multicast traffic may not be aligned
with IP unicast traffic. This means that a multicast datagram from a
particular source can arrive on a different (logical) interface than
the expected upstream interface based on traditional unicast routing.
The unicast routing information propagated by DVMRP is used
exclusively for determining the reverse path back to source of
multicast traffic. Tunnels are considered to be distinct interfaces
and route reports are sent unicast between tunnel endpoints as though
they arrived on the tunnel pseudo interface. The routing information
that is propagated by DVMRP contains a list of unicast source
networks and an appropriate metric. The metric used is a hop count
which is incremented by the cost of the incoming interface metric.
Traditionally, physical interfaces use a metric of 1 while the metric
of a tunnel interface varies with the distance and bandwidth in the
path between the two tunnel endpoints. Users are encouraged to
configure tunnels with the same metric in each direction in order to
prevent routing loops although the protocol does not strictly enforce
this.
3.4.1. Route Packing and Ordering
Since DVMRP Route Reports may need to refresh several thousand routes
each Report interval, routers MUST attempt to spread the routes
reported across the whole route update interval. This reduces the
chance of synchronized route reports causing routers to become
overwhelmed for a few seconds each report interval. Since the route
report interval is 60 seconds, it is suggested that the total number
routes being updated be split across multiple Route Reports sent at
regular intervals. One implementation splits all unicast routes
across 6 Report periods sent at 10 seconds intervals. Due to
limitations of older implementations of DVMRP, Route Reports should
contain source network/mask pairs sorted first by increasing network
mask and then by increasing source network within each possible mask
value.
In order to pack more source networks into a route report, source
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networks are often represented by less than 4 octets. The number of
significant bytes in the mask value is used to determine the number
of octets used to represent each source network within that
particular mask value. For instance if the mask value of 255.255.0.0
is being reported, the source networks would only contain 2 octets
each. DVMRP assumes that source networks will never be aggregated
into networks whose prefix length is less than 8. Therefore, it does
not carry the first octet of the mask in the Route Report since,
given this assumption, the first octet will always be 0xFF. This
means that the netmask value will always be represented in 3 octets.
This method of specifying source network masks is compatible with
techniques described in [Rekh93] and [Full93] to group traditional
Class C networks into super-nets and to allow different subnets of
the same Class A network to be discontinuous.
Immediately following each source network is an octet containing the
metric advertised to reach the source network.
3.4.2. Unicast Route Metrics
For each source network reported, a route metric is also contained in
the route report. The metric is the sum of the outgoing interface
metrics between the router originating the report and the source
network. For the purposes of DVMRP, Infinity is defined to be 32.
This limits the breadth across the whole DVMRP network and is
necessary to place an upper bound on the convergence time of the
protocol.
As seen in the packet format below, Route Reports do not contain a
count of the number of routes reported for each netmask. Instead, the
high order bit of the metric is used to signify the last route being
reported for a particular mask value. If a metric is read with the
high order bit of the 8-bit value set and if the end of the message
has not been reached, the next value will be a new netmask to be
applied to the subsequent list of routes. This technique is used to
prevent wasting space in the Route Report message for a count of
unicast source networks for each netmask value contained in the
Report.
3.4.3. Unicast Route Dependencies
In order for pruning to work correctly, each DVMRP router needs to
know which downstream routers depend on it for receiving datagrams
from particular source networks. Initially, when a new datagram
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arrives from a particular source/group pair, it is flooded to all
downstream interfaces that have DVMRP neighbors who have indicated a
dependency on the receiving DVMRP router for that particular source.
A downstream interface can only be pruned when it has received Prune
messages from each of the dependent routers on that interface. Each
downstream router uses a method called Poison Reverse to indicate to
the upstream router which source networks it expects to receive from
the upstream router. The downstream router indicates this by echoing
back the source networks it expects to receive from the upstream
router with infinity added to the advertised metric. This means that
the legal values for the metric now become between 1 and (2*Infinity
-1) or 1 and 63. Values between 1 and 31 indicate reachable unicast
source networks. The value Infinity (32)indicates the source network
is not reachable. Values between 33 and 63 indicate that the
downstream router originating the Report is depending upon the
upstream router to provide multicast datagrams from the corresponding
source network.
3.4.4. Sending Route Reports
Full Route Reports MUST be sent out every Route Report Interval. In
addition, flash updates CAN be sent between full route reports.
Flash updates can reduce the chances of routing loops and black holes
occurring when source networks become unreachable through a
particular path. Flash updates need only contain the source networks
that have changed. It is not necessary to report all of the source
networks from a particular mask value when sending an update.
A DVMRP router should not send a Route Report to a neighbor until it
has seen its own address in the neighbors Probe neighbor list.
3.4.5. Receiving Route Reports
After receiving a route report, a check should be made to verify it
is from a known neighbor. Neighbors are learned via received Probe
messages which also indicate the capabilities of the neighbor.
Therefore, route reports from unknown neighbors are discarded.
Some older implementations did not sort the routes contained in the
update. Therefore, Version 3 implementations MUST be able to handle
these reports.
If a route is not refreshed within 140 seconds (2 * (Route Report
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Interval + 10)), then it can be replaced with the next best route to
the same source. If, after 200 seconds, the route has not been
refreshed, then it should be expired.
3.4.6. Route Report Packet Format
The format of a sample Route Report Packet is shown in Figure 4
below. The packet shown is an example of how the source networks are
packed into a Report. The number of octets in each Source Network
will vary depending on the mask value. The values below are only an
example for clarity and are not intended to represent the format of
every Route Report.
7 15 23 31
+-----------+------------+-------------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | (0x2) | |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| Reserved | Capabil- | Minor | Major |
| | ities | Version | Version |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| Mask1 | Mask1 | Mask1 | Src |
| Octet2 | Octet3 | Octet4 | Net11 |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| SrcNet11(cont.)... | Metric11 | Src |
| | | Net12 |
+------------------------+------------+------------+
| SrcNet12(cont.)... | Metric12 | Mask2 |
| | | Octet2 |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| Mask2 | Mask2 | SrcNet21 |
| Octet3 | Octet4 | |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| SrcNet21(cont.)... | Metric21 | Mask3 |
| | | Octet2 |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+
| Mask3 | Mask3 | ... |
| Octet3 | Octet4 | |
+-----------+------------+-------------------------+
Figure 4 - Example Route Report Packet Format
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3.5. Pruning
DVMRP is described as a flood and prune multicast routing protocol
since datagrams are initially sent out all dependent downstream
interfaces and then pruned back to only the downstream interfaces
that are on a reverse shortest path to a receiver. Prunes are data
driven and are sent in response to receiving unwanted multicast
traffic at the leafs of the multicast tree rooted at a particular
source network.
3.5.1. Leaf Networks
Detection of leaf networks is very important to the pruning process.
Routers at the end of a source specific multicast delivery tree must
detect that there are no further downstream routers. This detection
mechanism is covered above in section 3.2 titled DVMRP Probe
Messages. If there are no group members present for a particular
multicast datagram received, the leaf routers will start the pruning
process by pruning their downstream interfaces and sending a prune to
the upstream router for that source.
3.5.2. Source Networks
It is important to note that prunes are specific to a group and
source network. A prune sent upstream triggered by traffic received
from a particular source applies to all sources on that network. It
is not currently possible to prune only one or a subset of hosts on a
source network for a particular group. All or none of the sources
must be pruned.
3.5.3. Receiving a Prune
When a prune is received, the following steps should be taken:
1. Determine if a Probe has been received from this router recently.
2. If not, discard prune since there is no prior state about this
neighbor.
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3. If so, make sure the neighbor is capable of pruning (based on
received Probe message).
4. Since Prune messages are fixed length, ensure the prune message
contains the correct amount of data.
5. Extract the source address, group address, and prune time-out
values
6. If no state exists for the (source, group) pair, then ignore the
prune.
7. Verify that the prune was received from a dependent neighbor for
the source network. If not, discard the prune.
8. Determine if a prune is currently active from the same dependent
neighbor for this (source, group) pair.
9. If so, reset the timer to the new time-out value. Otherwise,
create state for the new prune and set a timer for the prune
lifetime.
10. Determine if all dependent downstream routers on the interface
from which the prune was received have now sent prunes.
11. If so, then determine if there are group members active on the
interface.
12. If no group members are found, then prune the interface.
13. If all downstream interfaces have now been pruned, send a prune
to the RPF neighbor on the upstream interface.
3.5.4. Sending a Prune
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When sending a prune upstream, the following steps should be taken:
1. Decide if upstream neighbor is capable of receiving prunes.
2. If not, then proceed no further.
3. Stop any pending Grafts awaiting acknowledgments.
4. Determine the prune lifetime. This value should be the minimum of
the prune lifetimes remaining from the downstream neighbors and
the cache lifetime of the (source, group) pair.
5. Form and transmit the packet to the upstream neighbor for the
source.
3.5.5. Prune Packet Format
In addition to the standard IGMP and DVMRP headers, a Prune Packet
contains three additional fields: the source host IP address, the
destination group IP address, and the Prune Lifetime in seconds.
The Prune Lifetime is a derived value based on the current cache
entry that is being pruned. It is calculated as the minimum of the
cache entry lifetime and the lifetimes of any downstream prunes
received for the same cache entry.
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7 15 23 31
+-------------+--------------+-----------------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | (0x7) | |
+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
| Reserved | Capabilities | Minor | Major |
+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
| Source Address |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Group Address |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Prune Lifetime |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 5 - Prune Packet Format
3.6. Grafting
Once a multicast delivery tree has been pruned back, DVMRP Graft
messages are necessary to join new receivers onto the multicast tree.
Graft messages are sent upstream from the new receiver's first-hop
router until a point on the multicast tree is reached. Graft
messages are re-originated between adjacent DVMRP routers and are not
forwarded by DVMRP routers. Therefore, the first-hop router does not
know if the Graft message ever reaches the multicast tree. To remedy
this, each Graft message is acknowledged hop by hop. This ensures
that the Graft message is not lost somewhere along the path between
the receiver's first-hop router and the closest point on the
multicast delivery tree.
3.6.1. Grafting All Sources
It is important to realize that prunes are source specific and are
sent up different trees for each source. Grafts are sent in response
to a new Group Member which is not source specific. Therefore,
separate Graft messages must be sent to the appropriate upstream
routers to counteract each previous source specific prune that was
sent.
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3.6.2. Sending a Graft
As mentioned above, a Graft message sent to the upstream DVMRP router
should be acknowledged hop by hop guaranteeing end-to-end delivery.
If a Graft Acknowledgment is not received within the Graft
Retransmission Time-out period, the Graft should be resent to the
upstream router. The initial retransmission period is 5 seconds. A
binary exponential backoff policy is used on subsequent
retransmissions. In order to send a Graft message, the following
steps should be taken:
1. Verify a forwarding cache entry exists for the (source, group)
pair and that a prune exists for the cache entry.
2. Verify that the upstream router is capable of receiving prunes
(and therefore grafts).
3. Add the graft to the retransmission timer list awaiting an
acknowledgment.
4. Formulate and transmit the Graft packet.
3.6.3. Receiving a Graft
The actions taken when a Graft is received depends on the state in
the receiving router for the (source, group) pair in the received
Graft message. If the receiving router has prune state for the
(source, group) pair, then it must acknowledge the received graft and
send a subsequent graft to its upstream router. If the receiving
router has some pruned downstream interfaces but has not sent a prune
upstream, then the receiving interface can simply be added to the
list of downstream interfaces in the forwarding cache. A Graft
Acknowledgment must also be sent back to the source of the Graft
message. If the receiving router has no state at all for the
(source, group) pair, then datagrams arriving for the (source, group)
pair should automatically be flooded when they arrive. A Graft
Acknowledgment must be sent to the source of the Graft message. If a
Graft message is received from an unknown neighbor, it should be
discarded.
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3.6.4. Graft Packet Format
The format of a Graft packet is show below:
7 15 23 31
+-------------+--------------+-----------------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | (0x8) | |
+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
| Reserved | Capabilities | Minor | Major |
+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
| Source Address |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Group Address |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 6 - Graft Packet Format
3.6.5. Sending a Graft Acknowledgment
A Graft Acknowledgment packet is sent to a downstream neighbor in
response to receiving a Graft message. Grafts received from unknown
neighbors should be discarded but all other correctly formatted Graft
messages should be acknowledged. This is true even if no other action
is taken in response to receiving the Graft to prevent the source
from continually re-transmitting the Graft message. The Graft
Acknowledgment packet is identical to the Graft packet except that
the DVMRP code in the common header is set to Graft Ack. This allows
the receiver of the Graft Ack message to correctly identify which
Graft was acknowledged and stop the appropriate retransmission timer.
3.6.6. Receiving a Graft Acknowledgment
When a Graft Acknowledgment is received, the (source, group) pair in
the packet can be used to determine if a Graft was sent to this
particular upstream router. If no Graft was sent, the Graft Ack can
simply be ignored. If a Graft was sent, and the acknowledgment has
come from the correct upstream router, then it has been successfully
received and the retransmission timer for the Graft can be stopped.
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3.6.7. Graft Acknowledgment Packet Format
The format of a Graft Ack packet (which is identical to that of a
Graft packet is show below:
7 15 23 31
+-------------+--------------+-----------------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | (0x9) | |
+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
| Reserved | Capabilities | Minor | Major |
+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
| Source Address |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Group Address |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 7 - Graft Ack Packet Format
3.7. Interfaces
Interfaces running DVMRP will either be multicast capable physical
interfaces or encapsulated tunnel pseudo-interfaces. Physical
interfaces may either be multi-access networks or point-to-point
networks. Tunnel interfaces are used when there are non-multicast
capable routers between DVMRP neighbors. Multicast data traffic is
sent between tunnel endpoints using IP-IP encapsulation. The unicast
IP addresses of the tunnel endpoints are used as the source and
destination IP addresses in the outer IP header. The inner IP header
remains unchanged from the original data packet.
Since DVMRP Protocol messages are not encapsulated when sent between
tunnel endpoints, they must always be sent directly to the unicast
address of the tunneled neighbor.
4. Security Considerations
Security for DVMRP follows the general security architecture provided
for the Internet Protocol [Atk95a]. This framework provides for both
privacy and authentication. It recommends the use of the IP
Authentication Header [Atk95b] to provide trusted neighbor
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relationships. Confidentiality is provided by the addition of the IP
Encapsulating Security Payload [Atk95c]. Please refer to these
documents for the general architecture design as well as the specific
implementation details.
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5. References
[Atk95a] Atkinson, R., "Security Architecture for the Internet
Protocol", RFC 1825, August 1995.
[Atk95b] Atkinson, R., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 1826, August
1995.
[Atk95c] Atkinson, R., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)",
RFC 1827, August 1995.
[Deer89] Deering, S., "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting", RFC
1112, August 1989.
[Deer90] Deering, S., Cheriton, D., "Multicast Routing in Datagram
Internetworks and Extended LANs", ACM Transactions on
Computer Systems, Vol. 8, No. 2, May 1990, Pages 85-110.
[Fenn96] Fenner, W., "Internet Group Management Protocol, Version
2", Work In Progress, February 1996.
[Full93] Fuller, V., T. Li, J. Yu, and K. Varadhan, "Classless
Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): an Address Assignment and
Aggregation Strategy", RFC 1519, September 1993.
[Perk96] Perkins, C., IP Encapsulation within IP, Work in Progress,
May 1996.
[Rekh93] Rekhter, Y., and T. Li, "An Architecture for IP Address
Allocation with CIDR", RFC 1518, September 1993.
[Wait88] Waitzman, D., Partridge, C., Deering, S., "Distance Vector
Multicast Routing Protocol", RFC 1075, November 1988.
6. Author's Address
Thomas Pusateri
Juniper Networks, Inc.
3260 Jay St.
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Phone: (919) 558-0700
EMail: pusateri@jnx.com
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7. Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge the original designers of the
protocol, Steve Deering, Craig Partridge, and David Waitzman.
Version 3 of the protocol would not have been possible without the
work of Ajit Thyagarajan and Bill Fenner. Credit also goes to Dave
LeRoy and Danny Mitzel for the careful review of this document.
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8. Appendix A - Constants & Configurable Parameters
The following table provides a summary of the DVMRP timing
parameters:
Parameter Value (seconds)
-------------------------------------------------
Probe Interval 10
Neighbor Time-out Interval 140
Route Report Interval 60
Route Replacement Time 140
Route Expiration Time 200
Prune Lifetime variable (< 300)
Graft Retransmission Time 5 with exp. backoff
-------------------------------------------------
Table 2 - Parameter Summary
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9. Appendix B - Tracing and Troubleshooting support
There are several packet types used to gather DVMRP specific
information. They are generally used for diagnosing problems or
gathering topology information. The first two messages are now
obsoleted and should not be used. The remaining two messages provide
a request/response mechanism to determine the versions and
capabilities of a particular DVMRP router.
Code Packet Type Description
-----------------------------------------------------------
3 DVMRP Ask Neighbors Obsolete
4 DVMRP Neighbors Obsolete
5 DVMRP Ask Neighbors 2 Request Neighbor List
6 DVMRP Neighbors 2 Respond with Neighbor List
-----------------------------------------------------------
Table 3 - Debugging Packet Types
9.1. DVMRP Ask Neighbors2
The Ask Neighbors2 packet is a unicast request packet directed at a
DVMRP router. The destination should respond with a unicast
Neighbors2 message back to the sender of the Ask Neighbors2 message.
0 8 16 31
+---------+---------+--------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
|(0x13) | (0x5) | |
+---------+---------+----------+---------+
| Reserved | Minor | Major |
| | Version |Version |
+-------------------+----------+---------+
Figure 8 - Ask Neighbors 2 Packet Format
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9.2. DVMRP Neighbors2
The format of a Neighbors2 response packet is shown below. This is
sent as a unicast message back to the sender of an Ask Neighbors2
message. There is a common header at the top followed by the routers
capabilities. One or more sections follow that contain an entry for
each logical interface. The interface parameters are listed along
with a variable list of neighbors learned on each interface.
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0 8 16 31
+-----------+--------------+--------------------------+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
| (0x13) | (0x6) | |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| Reserved | Capabilities | Minor | Major |
| | | Version | Version |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| |
| Local Addr 1 |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| | | | |
| Metric 1 | Threshold 1 | Flags 1 | Nbr Count 1 |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| |
| Nbr 1 |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| ... |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Nbr m |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Local Addr N |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| | | | |
| Metric N | Threshold N | Flags N | Nbr Count N |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| |
| Nbr 1 |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| ... |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Nbr k |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
Figure 9 - Neighbors 2 Packet Format
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The capabilities of the local router are defined as follows:
Bit Flag Description
---------------------------------------------------
0 Leaf This is a leaf router
1 Prune This router understands pruning
2 GenID This router sends Generation IDs
3 Mtrace This router handles Mtrace requests
---------------------------------------------------
Table 4 - DVMRP Router Capabilities
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The flags associated with a particular interface are:
Bit Flag Description
----------------------------------------------------------
0 Tunnel Neighbor reached via tunnel
1 Source Route Tunnel uses IP source routing
2 Reserved No longer used
3 Down Operational status down
4 Disabled Administrative status down
5 Reserved No longer used
6 Leaf No downstream neighbors on interface
----------------------------------------------------------
Table 5 - DVMRP Interface flags
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10. Appendix C - Version Compatibility
There have been two previous major versions of DVMRP with
implementations still in circulation. If the receipt of a Probe
message reveals a major version of 1 or 2, then it can be assumed
that this neighbor does not support pruning or the use of the
Generation ID in the Probe message. However, since these older
implementations are known to safely ignore the Generation ID and
neighbor information in the Probe packet, it is not necessary to
send specially formatted Probe packets to these neighbors.
There were two minor versions (1 and 2) of major version 3 that
did support pruning but did not support the Generation ID or
capability flags. These special cases will have to be accounted
for.
Any other minor versions of major version 3 conform to this
specification.
In addition, cisco Systems is known to use their software major
and minor release number as the DVMRP major and minor version
number. These will typically be 10 or 11 for the major version
number. These implementations do support pruning but do not
support the Generation ID in the Probe message.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Reverse Path Multicasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. IP-IP Tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3. Document Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Neighbor Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Source Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Dependent Downstream Routers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4. Building Multicast Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5. Pruning Multicast Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6. Grafting Multicast Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Detailed Protocol Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Protocol Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Probe Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3. Building Forwarding Cache Entries . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.4. Unicast Route Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.5. Pruning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.6. Grafting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.7. Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6. Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8. Appendix A - Constants & Configurable Parameters . . . . . 27
9. Appendix B - Tracing and Troubleshooting support . . . . . 28
9.1. DVMRP Ask Neighbors2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
9.2. DVMRP Neighbors2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
10. Appendix C - Version Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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