One document matched: draft-ietf-mboned-iesg-gap-analysis-00.txt


   Internet Draft                                  Editors:    D. Meyer 
                                                                 Sprint 
   Document:                                                B. Nickless 
   draft-ietf-mboned-iesg-gap-analysis-00.txt          Argonne National 
                                                             Laboratory 
   Expires:                                                   July 2002 
   January 2003 
 
 
                      Internet Multicast Gap Analysis  
                       from the MBONED Working Group  
                               for the IESG 
 
 
1. Status of this Memo 
 
   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance 
   with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 
    
   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that      
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts. 
    
   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six 
   months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents 
   at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as 
   reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 
    
   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
        http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt 
    
   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
        http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
    
    
2. Abstract 
    
   An overview of IP multicast as deployed in the Internet today, from 
   the perspective of the MBONED working group.  Existing 
   infrastructure is examined critically.  Suggestions for possible 
   improvement of the overall architecture are presented for the IESG. 
 
 
3. Table of Contents 
    
   1. Status of this Memo.............................................1 
   2. Abstract........................................................1 
   4. Overview and Background.........................................2 
   5. Conventions used in this document...............................2 
   6. RFC 1112........................................................3 
   7. Source-Specific Multicast.......................................3 
   8. Host Extensions for IP Multicast................................3 
    
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   9. Mapping of Multicast Group Addresses to Ethernet MAC Addresses..4 
   10. Local Subnet Receiver Interest Protocol (IGMP).................4 
   11. Collision-Sense Media Access Sender Model......................4 
   12. Multicast Gateways.............................................5 
   13. Dense Mode Internet Multicast Routing..........................5 
   14. Reachability Protocol Independent Multicast Routing............6 
   15. Sparse Mode Internet Multicast Routing.........................7 
   16. Mixed Dense/Sparse Mode Internet Multicast Routing.............7 
   17. Bursty Sources vs. Sparse Mode Forwarding State Maintenance....8 
   18. Co-mingled Source Knowledge and Packet Forwarding..............8 
   19. Co-mingled IP and Ethernet Routing.............................9 
   20. Inter-Domain IP Multicast Exchange Points......................9 
   21. IP Multicast Architectural Gaps...............................11 
   22. Recommendations from MBONED to IESG...........................11 
   23. Acknowledgements..............................................13 
   24. Security Considerations.......................................13 
   25. References....................................................14 
   26. EditorsÆ Addresses............................................14 
 
 
4. Overview and Background 
    
   At the IETF-54 meeting, the MBONED working group recommended that 
   the MSDP working group publish their current work as an 
   Informational RFC and shut down.  Some participants in the MBONED 
   and MSDP working groups believed that the recurring discussions 
   about the operation of MSDP were proxy arguments about the IP 
   Multicast service model, and how that model can be supported in the 
   Internet.  Participants came to rough consensus that the best place 
   for these overall service model and deployment questions is the 
   MBONED working group. 
    
   A two phase approach was adopted.  The short-term objective is to 
   document existing MSDP implementations and deployments.  A longer-
   term objective for the MBONED working group is to perform a ôgap 
   analysisö of the existing IP multicast service model, protocols, and 
   deployment.   
    
   This document represents that ôgap analysis,ö and is intended as 
   advice to IESG.  The MBONED participants hope the IESG will consider 
   this advice in the context of IESG guidance for further IP multicast 
   protocol development and deployment work. 
    
5. Conventions used in this document 
    
   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in 
   this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [1]. 
    
    
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6. RFC 1112 
    
   The seminal specification for IP Multicast is RFC 1112.  It 
   describes five elements required for IP Multicast on a local subnet: 
   extensions to host software, an IPv4 address range reserved for 
   group addresses, a method for mapping multicast group addresses to 
   Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, a protocol to 
   discover receivers interested in packets addressed to a group 
   (Internet Group Management Protocol), and a collision-sense multiple 
   access (CSMA) method for multicast packet senders.   
    
   This model was inspired by Ethernet.  The IEEE 802.3 Ethernet 
   specification includes a bit in the MAC address format that 
   indicates the frame may be intended for multiple receivers.  
   Ethernet interfaces can be programmed to receive these multicast MAC 
   addresses and forward them to the host for processing.  On a 
   traditional 10Base5 Ethernet, any station can put a frame on the 
   wire, with the only requirement being to sense collisions and 
   retransmit if necessary. 
    
   RFC 1112 also suggests that gateways may exist for moving IP 
   multicast datagrams to other subnets with interested receivers. 
    
   The RFC 1112 service model has since become known as Any Source 
   Multicast (ASM).  When a receiver registers interest in a group, it 
   will be delivered datagrams from any source that transmits datagrams 
   addressed to that group. 
    
    
7. Source-Specific Multicast 
    
   Just as early Ethernet controllers were programmable to only receive 
   frames with certain MAC addresses, RFC 1112 and IGMP Version 2 only 
   allowed IP Multicast receivers to elect to receive datagrams 
   addressed to specific group addresses.  Receivers could not select 
   the sources participating in a group from which they would receive. 
    
   Later Ethernet controllers allowed more sophisticated filtering, 
   including the capability of choosing from which senders the host 
   wished to accept frames.  Similarly, Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) 
   is an extension to the basic IP multicast model that allows 
   receivers to select the source addresses from which to receive 
   datagrams.  IGMP Version 3 implements this service model extension 
   for IPv4, and the Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol 
   Version 2 implements this service model extension for IPv6. 
    
    
8. Host Extensions for IP Multicast 
    
   Ultimately, user applications originate and accept IP multicast 
   datagrams.  RFC 1112 describes the extensions to various host 
   software modules to support applications sending and receiving 
    
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   datagrams.  It also describes the operations a user application can 
   perform to transmit and receive multicast datagrams. 
    
    
9. Mapping of Multicast Group Addresses to Ethernet MAC Addresses 
    
   When preparing an IP datagram for transmission on an Ethernet, it is 
   necessary for the host to specify the destination MAC address.  (The 
   source MAC address is typically constant, based on the IEEE-
   controlled address hard-wired into the Ethernet controller.)  Before 
   sending unicast datagrams, the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is 
   generally used by a host to learn the destination MAC address for a 
   given destination IPv4 address.  RFC 2461 describes the equivalent 
   Neighbor Discovery protocol procedure used for IPv6. 
    
   IPv4 multicast datagrams are not addressed to specific host 
   addresses; instead, they are addressed to group addresses in the 
   224.0.0.0/4 range.  Likewise, IPv6 multicast datagrams are addressed 
   to group addresses in the FF00::/8 range. 
    
   RFC 1112 specifies a static 32:1 mapping from IPv4 multicast group 
   addresses to Ethernet MAC addresses.  One reason to define the 32:1 
   mapping was financial; to reserve enough Ethernet MAC addresses from 
   the IEEE for a 1:1 mapping would have cost USD$16,000 in 1988.  The 
   32:1 mapping reduced that cost to USD$1,000. 
    
   RFC 2464 (section 7) specifies a static 2^96:1 (that is, 
   79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336:1) mapping from IPv6 
   multicast group addresses to Ethernet MAC addresses.  Note that it 
   is impossible to determine the RFC 2375 scope directly from the 
   Ethernet 802.3 MAC address, as the RFC 2464 mapping does not include 
   the scope octet. 
    
    
10. Local Subnet Receiver Interest Protocol (IGMP) 
    
   RFCs 1112 and 2236 define the Internet Group Management Protocol 
   (IGMP) Version 2.  IGMPv2 notifies the network of the interest of a 
   host for datagrams addressed to a given group address.  Again, this 
   is analogous to a host notifying an Ethernet controller to accept 
   frames with a given MAC address. 
    
   The IPv6 equivalent of IGMP is the Multicast Listener Discovery 
   Protocol (MLD), originally defined in RFC 2710. 
    
    
11. Collision-Sense Media Access Sender Model 
    
   Any host connected to a 10Base5 Ethernet can choose to transmit a 
   frame at any time, subject only to the operation of the collision-
   sense media access (CSMA) protocol. 
    
    
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   Given the static mapping of IPv4 group addresses to Ethernet MAC 
   addresses, RFC 1112 specifies that an IPv4 datagram, addressed to a 
   multicast group, can be transmitted by a host at any time.   
    
   Similarly, RFC 2464 implies that an IPv6 datagram addressed to a 
   multicast group can be transmitted by a host at any time. 
    
    
12. Multicast Gateways 
    
   RFC 1112 suggested that gateways might exist to pass multicast 
   traffic between networks.  Through the operation of the local subnet 
   receiver interest protocol IGMP, these gateways can learn of the 
   interest of receivers in multicast group datagrams. 
    
   As the technology for internetwork routing was unknown at the time 
   of publication, RFC 1112 does not specify how that routing is to 
   take place. 
    
    
13. Dense Mode Internet Multicast Routing 
    
   Following the Ethernet broadcast model, the first scheme for routing 
   IP multicast datagrams between Ethernets was for a multi-homed 
   gateway to flood all multicast datagrams on each Ethernet to all 
   other Ethernets.  In other words, gateways become the IP multicast 
   equivalent of Ethernet repeaters. 
    
   Ethernet bridges generally run the Spanning Tree Protocol (IEEE 
   Specification 802.1d) to eliminate forwarding loops.  Forwarding 
   loops can also happen when there is more than one multi-homed 
   gateway in an internetwork.  The Distance Vector Multicast Routing 
   Protocol (DVMRP) [RFC 1075] operates to eliminate forwarding loops.  
   DVMRP, operating on a gateway, keeps track of the Reverse Path 
   Forwarding (RPF) interface from which a multicast datagram with a 
   given source address should arrive.  If such multicast datagrams 
   arrive on the appropriate RPF interfaces, they are replicated and 
   flooded to all other interfaces by the gateway. 
    
   The effect of this procedure is to replicate all IP multicast 
   datagrams transmitted by any host to all subnets.  This limits the 
   available bandwidth for all multicast traffic in the internetwork to 
   that bandwidth available on the slowest link. 
    
   One optimization to this procedure is for gateways to use a receiver 
   interest protocol such as IGMP to limit traffic flooded out an 
   interface.  Only if there are receivers interested in a group, on a 
   network attached to a given interface, will the gateway flood 
   datagrams addressed to that group out that interface.  Of course, 
   gateways are generally assumed by fellow gateways to be interested 
   in all groups, so this optimization does not apply to networks with 
   more than one gateway. 
    
    
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   A second optimization further limits flooding.  Consider a situation 
   where a gateway has no interested receivers on all attached networks 
   for a given group, yet receives an IP multicast datagram addressed 
   to that group.  DVMRP provides for gateways to send Prune messages 
   out the appropriate RPF interface to notify fellow gateways that 
   they have no interested receivers.  
    
   A third optimization provides for this limiting process to continue 
   recursively.   Once a gateway receives Prune messages from all other 
   gateways on a network, and has no interested hosts, it stops 
   forwarding messages out the attached interface.  If all interfaces 
   have such stoppages for a given group, it can generate its own Prune 
   towards out the appropriate RPF interface to notify upstream 
   gateways to stop sending datagrams addressed to a given group.   
    
   Through repeated application of this procedure, the distribution of 
   multicast datagrams is limited only to the networks that have 
   attached interested receivers, and to intermediate networks between 
   sources and interested receivers.  Multicast datagrams are 
   distributed down a tree rooted at the source.  Vertexes of the tree 
   are the gateways, and the edges of the tree are the networks 
   connecting gateways. 
    
   This general strategy is known as ôdense modeö multicast routing. 
    
   As the number of multicast sources and receivers increase, the core 
   of the multicast-enabled internetwork becomes more and more heavily 
   loaded.  Fewer opportunities for pruning occur. 
    
   As dense mode routing was experimentally deployed, a meta-stable 
   failure mode was discovered.  A gateway (or its attached network) 
   can be overwhelmed with multicast traffic.  Even though the gateway 
   may have no interested receivers, it can fail to generate the 
   required number of Prune messages.  Unfortunately this failure mode 
   can spread, because upstream gateways (closer to the sources) assume 
   that packet replication and transmission is required, adding to 
   their own load.  Eventually the whole multicast internet collapses 
   under the weight of un-Pruned traffic. 
    
    
14. Reachability Protocol Independent Multicast Routing 
    
   In addition to controlling whether forwarding occurs (based on 
   receiver interest), DVMRP maintains the topology of the forwarding 
   trees from source to receivers.  As its name implies, a distance-
   vector procedure similar to RIP is used. 
    
   Experience has shown that a distance-vector reachability protocol 
   does not scale for large internets.  Link-state protocols such as 
   IS-IS and OSPF are generally used within administrative domains, and 
   the Border Gateway Protocol is generally used between administrative 
   domains.  Convergence speed, policy flexibility, and other 
   considerations motivate this diversity of reachability protocol use. 
    
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   The Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) multicast routing protocol 
   takes its name from the fact that it can take its reachability 
   information from any underlying reachability protocol.  PIM 
   concentrates on maintaining and controlling the multicast forwarding 
   tree along the topology provided by whatever underlying reachability 
   protocol(s) is/are used. 
    
    
15. Sparse Mode Internet Multicast Routing 
    
   One way to eliminate the dense mode meta-stable failure mode is by 
   adjusting the inter-gateway forwarding procedure to require 
   downstream gateways to explicitly request datagrams for a given 
   group based on receiver interest. 
    
   In this regime, the forwarding tree is built from the interested 
   receivers towards the source.  Datagrams from the source are 
   distributed back down the tree to the interested receivers. 
    
   Through IGMPv3 (or any similar SSM-style receiver interest discovery 
   protocol) the receivers provide both pieces of information necessary 
   for the internetwork to create and maintain the source-rooted 
   forwarding tree: the IP addresses of the source and multicast group. 
    
    
16. Mixed Dense/Sparse Mode Internet Multicast Routing 
    
   A straightforward sparse mode forwarding protocol alone cannot 
   support the RFC 1112 Any Source Multicast service model.  Although 
   the receivers supply the group address for which theyÆre interested 
   in receiving datagrams, the internetwork is responsible for 
   identifying active sources so the source-rooted forwarding trees can 
   be created. 
    
   The hybrid approach taken in RFC 2362 (PIM Sparse Mode Version 2) 
   and MSDP is to flood the initial datagrams from any sender, 
   typically under strict rate controls.  When a gateway receives one 
   of these flooded datagrams from a given sender, whose group address 
   matches that of an attached interested receiver, the gateway grafts 
   itself to the source-rooted forwarding tree for that sender. 
    
   So long as the source continues to transmit packets, the forwarding 
   tree associated with the source is preserved.  After a period of 
   quiescence the forwarding tree is torn down. 
    
   The result is a dual-plane routing architecture.  A dense-mode, 
   rate-limited, flooding plane distributes datagrams from newly active 
   sources.  A sparse-mode, source-rooted tree based forwarding plane 
   distributes and replicates datagrams from established sources. 
    
    
    
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17. Bursty Sources vs. Sparse Mode Forwarding State Maintenance 
    
   Prior to the development of the client-server-based World Wide Web, 
   a session announcement protocol (SAP) was developed to allow 
   interested parties to discover and participate in multilateral 
   multimedia conference.  Periodically a multicast datagram would be 
   generated and sourced, providing the multicast group addresses, 
   media formats, and other such information needed for interested 
   parties to join the conference. 
    
   As in any real-world application protocol, two factors required an 
   engineering trade-off: the bandwidth consumed by the announcements 
   vs. the frequency of announcements.  Recall that early internetwork 
   multicast routing used a dense mode approach; datagrams were flooded 
   everywhere unless they were explicitly known to be unwanted.   Given 
   the propensity of the entire internetwork multicast infrastructure 
   to collapse under load, great emphasis was placed on limiting the 
   total bandwidth consumed by the announcements.  Thus, the SAP 
   announcement frequency was often measured in tens of minutes. 
    
   As sparse-mode multicast routing became more widely deployed, this 
   tens-of-minutes frequency of SAP announcements became a problem.  
   Each time an SAP announcement was sourced, the sparse-mode source-
   based distribution tree would be created towards interested 
   receivers.  But due to the low frequency of each independent 
   announcement, the distribution tree would have been deemed quiescent 
   and would be torn down. 
    
   The resulting ôbursty sourceö traffic would often follow only the 
   dense-mode, rate-limited flooding routing plane.  The sparse-mode, 
   higher-performance forwarding plane would assume the source has gone 
   quiescent long before the next ôburstö. 
    
18. Co-mingled Source Knowledge and Packet Forwarding 
    
   ThereÆs a chicken-and-egg problem at the heart of internetwork 
   multicast routing.  On the one hand, experience has shown that a 
   source-based distribution tree is the most efficient way to forward 
   datagrams from a source to all interested listeners.  On the other 
   hand, such a source-based distribution tree cannot be created until 
   the source is known, and RFC 1112 decrees that sources be able to 
   transmit at any time without warning. 
    
   In other words, RFC 1112 defines an active source as a source that 
   has placed a datagram on the wire.  But by the time the datagram has 
   been placed on the wire, itÆs too late to create a source-based 
   distribution tree to all interested receivers. 
    
   There have been several approaches taken to resolve this problem. 
    
   The first was to not use source-based distribution trees at all.  
   Unfortunately this approach resulted in an internetwork that would 
   collapse under load. 
    
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   The second approach has been to create dual routing planes: a dense-
   mode plane to forward the initial datagrams from a source, and as a 
   side effect create a source-based distribution tree in the sparse-
   mode plane.  Unfortunately these dual routing planes lead to a great 
   deal of complexity. 
    
   The third approach has been SSM: put the burden of spreading the 
   knowledge of active sources on the application rather than the 
   network.  This approach has two major drawbacks: first, it requires 
   the replacement or upgrade of edge IEEE 802.x devices to support 
   IGMPv3 snooping, along with a wholesale upgrade to host operating 
   systems.  Second, it requires applications to develop their own 
   rendezvous mechanisms. 
    
19. Co-mingled IP and Ethernet Routing 
    
   For primarily historical reasons, the IETF has pushed vendors of 
   nominally IEEE 802.x compliant equipment to also become IPv4-aware 
   enough to understand the IGMP Version 2 protocol.   
    
   IEEE has responded with the GARP/GMRP protocol suite, which are 
   intended to allow 802.x hosts to control MAC-layer multicast 
   replication and filtering.  However, the IETF has continued work on 
   IGMP and MLD while ignoring media-specific protocols like GARP/GMRP. 
    
   Arguably, this has marginalized IP multicast deployment, especially 
   IPv6 multicast deployment.  Only the very high-end IEEE 802.x 
   devices have the sophistication to interpret IPv4/IGMP and IPv6/MLD 
   datagrams.   
    
    
20. Inter-Domain IP Multicast Exchange Points 
    
   Autonomous Systems often wish to exchange traffic.  Exchange points 
   have been developed to meet this demand.  One popular type of 
   exchange point is realized in an 802.x Ethernet switch.  Each 
   participating Autonomous System is provided an 802.x Ethernet port 
   and an IP address on the exchange point network, to which the 
   Autonomous System connects a router.  Bilateral BGP sessions are 
   then established between Autonomous Systems across the 802.x network 
   fabric. 
    
   When an Autonomous System router wishes to deliver a unicast 
   datagram to another Autonomous System router participating at such 
   an exchange point, it follows this procedure: 
    
   - The datagramÆs IP Destination Address is compared to the 
     Forwarding Information Base (FIB).  The FIB returns a so-called 
     ônext-hopö IP address.  This next-hop address is generally 
     assigned to another Autonomous SystemÆs router at the exchange 
     point. 
    
    
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   - Through the operation of the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), 
     the 802.x Ethernet MAC address associated with the next-hop IP 
     address is determined. 
 
   - An Ethernet frame is assembled with the destination MAC address 
     set to the MAC address determined through ARP, and is transmitted 
     to the Exchange Point 802.x Ethernet switch. 
 
   - The exchange point 802.x Ethernet switch examines the destination 
     MAC address of the Ethernet frame.  Based on that address, the 
     exchange point switch delivers the Ethernet frame to the 
     destination Autonomous SystemÆs router. 
    
   Consider an analogous procedure for multicast routing.  The object 
   is to graft the Autonomous SystemÆs router onto a source-rooted 
   distribution tree across the exchange point.  Here is one procedure 
   that a downstream router can follow: 
    
   - The downstream router compares the source address to its Multicast 
     Reachability Information Base (M-RIB).  The M-RIB returns the IP 
     address of an ôupstreamö router across the exchange point. 
    
   - Through the operation of the PIM Sparse Mode Protocol, the 
     downstream router registers interest in that source and group 
     addresses to the upstream router across the exchange point. 
 
   - Upon receipt of a matching datagram for the downstream router, the 
     upstream router assembles an Ethernet frame and transmits it to 
     the exchange point 802.x Ethernet switch.  As per RFC 1112 or RFC 
     2464, the destination MAC address of the frame is statically 
     derived from the destination group address of the datagram. 
 
   - The exchange point 802.x Ethernet switch examines the destination 
     MAC address.  As this MAC address is a multicast address, the 
     802.x Ethernet switch replicates this frame and sends it to all 
     output ports. 
 
   This presents three problems: 
    
   First, the multicast traffic is needlessly replicated to all 
   participants in the exchange point.  In the unicast case above, the 
   802.x Ethernet exchange point switch could use the Ethernet 
   destination MAC address to uniquely identify which port should 
   receive a given frame.  The static mapping of destination multicast 
   group address to Ethernet MAC addresses makes that determination 
   impossible. 
    
   Second, the needlessly replicated multicast traffic can trigger the 
   PIM Assert process, as per RFC 2362 Section 2.9.  The PIM Assert 
   process has been observed to override the policy decisions of 
   downstream routers in exchange points. 
    
    
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   Third, it is impossible for multicast traffic to pass through an 
   exchange point more than once.  Any given exchange point participant 
   may not have a peering agreement with all other participants, 
   requiring an intermediate hop through a transit Autonomous System 
   participant.  Due to the operation of ARP this is not a problem for 
   unicast traffic, but due to the static mapping of multicast groups 
   to (e.g.) Ethernet MAC addresses, this cannot work. 
    
   In summary, it is impossible to support IP multicast at an exchange 
   point, when that exchange point is based on IEEE 802.3 Ethernet. 
    
    
21. IP Multicast Architectural Gaps 
    
   In general, the IETF focus is on Internet protocols.  IGMP snooping 
   places the requirement of IPv4-awareness on IEEE-standardized 802.x 
   Ethernet switches.  The current drafts for IPv6 MLD seek to extend 
   that requirement to include IPv6.  The IESG would rightfully refuse 
   to allow IETF working groups to impose such requirements on devices 
   standardized by organizations outside the IETF (such as IEEE), but 
   somehow has excepted the IP multicast work from this discipline. 
    
   The Internet is more complex than a simple CSMA-style Ethernet 
   segment, where sources can transmit at any time.  Experience clearly 
   indicates that internetwork multicast datagram forwarding is most 
   efficiently done by source-rooted distribution trees.  Experience 
   compels revisitation of the assumption that sources should be able 
   to transmit at any time, yet receive the same level of service as 
   that provided by a fully instantiated source-rooted distribution 
   tree.   
    
   Registration of soon-to-be-active sources (along the lines of the 
   unicast Address Resolution Protocol [ARP]) should be seriously 
   considered. 
    
   Part of the registration of soon-to-be-active sources could include 
   allocation of link-local media-specific multicast addresses, rather 
   than relying solely on the static mappings defined in RFC 1112 and 
   RFC 2464. 
    
   The static mapping of IP multicast group addresses to media-specific 
   multicast addresses (in particular, Ethernet) cannot operate 
   properly at exchange points. 
    
    
22. Recommendations from MBONED to IESG 
    
   The IESG should direct the MAGMA working group to develop a 
   successor to IGMP/MLD. 
    
     - The successor should perform the receiver interest discovery 
       functions of existing versions of IGMP/MLD, but in addition 
       should support the registration of active sources. 
    
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     - At least three modes of operation should be supported.  As in 
       IGMPv2/MLDv1, sources and receivers should be able to transmit 
       to and receive from group addresses without respect to the 
       identities of sources.  In a second mode, analogous to 
       IGMPv3/MLDv2, receivers should be able to select the sources 
       from which they want to receive traffic for a particular group.  
       A third mode should permit receivers to select the source 
       address, group address, and upstream gateway from which to 
       receive traffic. 
      
     - The successor should be media-agnostic.  Media-specific 
       multicast addresses should be treated as opaque handles.  
       Examples of media-specific multicast addresses might include 
       802.x MAC addresses, ATM Forum NSAP point-to-multipoint 
       addresses, etc. 
      
     - Adaptation layers for this successor protocol should be 
       developed to use media-specific mechanisms for multicast 
       transport and replication.  For example, the IEEE 802.1p 
       GARP/GMRP protocol should be used on Ethernet.  ATM Forum UNI 
       point-to-multipoint signaling should be used on ATM networks 
       (c.f. RFC 2022). 
 
     - This successor protocol would provide for the dynamic assignment 
       of media-specific addresses.  As necessary, the media address 
       assignment mechanism might control the creation and maintenance 
       of media-specific intra-subnet distribution mechanisms, such as 
       ATM point-to-multipoint switched virtual circuits.  When in 
       operation on an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet, this mechanism would 
       supercede RFC 1112 Section 6.4 and RFC 2464 Section 7. 
 
     - The first application for this successor protocol would be at 
       public internetwork exchange points.  The third mode of 
       operation (allowing receivers to select the source address, 
       group address, and upstream gateway) would allow participants at 
       exchange points to select their upstream neighbor towards a 
       source based on explicit policy, rather than the vagaries of the 
       PIM Assert mechanisms. 
 
     - This successor protocol may not be applicable for IP datagrams 
       with TTL=1, so as to preserve semantics for link-local 
       rendezvous (e.g. OSPF).  Likewise, it may not be applicable for 
       IPv6 RFC 2375 scopes 0, 1, and 2. 
    
   The IESG should encourage the development of a protocol to spread 
   the knowledge of active sources to interested gateways.  Given a 
   successor to IGMP that supports the registration of active sources, 
   this spreading of knowledge can happen independently of actual 
   multicast datagram forwarding.   
    
   The IESG should discourage any further work on IGMP or MLD snooping, 
   as implemented by otherwise nominally IEEE 802 compliant equipment.  
    
   Meyer, 
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                   Internet Multicast Gap Analysis          July 2002 
    
   Instead, the IESG should encourage the use of GARP/GMRP on IEEE 802 
   networks. 
    
   The IESG should guide protocols that use IP multicast to maintain a 
   minimum frequency of datagram transmission, so as to preserve 
   source-based forwarding trees. 
    
23. Acknowledgements 
    
   This work was supported by the Mathematical, Information, and 
   Computational Sciences Division subprogram of the Office of Advanced 
   Scientific Computing Research, U.S. Department of Energy, under 
   Contract W-31-109-Eng-38. 
    
    
24. Security Considerations 
    
   Security considerations are not yet discussed in this draft memo. 
 
    
   Meyer, 
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                   Internet Multicast Gap Analysis          July 2002 
    
    
25. References 
    
   Most of the references are called out in-line.  This section will be 
   completed more fully before final publication. 
    
    
   1  RFC 2119 Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 
      Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997 
    
    
    
    
26. EditorsÆ Addresses 
    
   David Meyer                     Email: dmm@sprint.net 
    
   Bill Nickless 
   Argonne National Laboratory 
   9700 South Cass Avenue #221     Phone:  +1 630 252 7390 
   Argonne, IL 60439               Email:  nickless@mcs.anl.gov 
    
   Meyer, 
   Nickless (Editors)     Informational - Expires January 2002      14 

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