Multicast - Protocol Independent Multicast

11 important questions on Multicast - Protocol Independent Multicast

There are multiple Multicast Routing Protocols, what is the only one that is fully supported by Cisco?

Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)

How do Multicast routers define the path that IP Multicast traffic follows?

It creates distribution trees, two types exist;
1. Source Tree (Shortest Path Tree)
2. Shared Tree

How does a Multicast Source Tree work?

It builts a tree from the Source like a tree to the Receivers (Leaves)
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What is the notation of the forwarding state of Source Tree or Shortest Path Tree?

(S,G) Where S stands for Source and G for Group address

What is different about a Shared Tree or RP Tree vs a Source Tree?

In a shared tree the root of the tree is not the source but a router designated as a Rendezvous Point (RP) is. Packets are forwarded down the shared tree to the G group address regardless of the source address.

What is the notation of the forwarding state of a Shared Tree or Rendezvous Point Tree (RPT)?

(*,G) Packets are forwarderd down the tree to the G group address regardless of the source address, hence the asterisk.

What are the 5 PIM operating modes?

PIM Dense Mode (PIM-DM)
PIM Sparse Mode (PIM-SM)
PIM Sparse Dense Mode
PIM Source Specific Multicast (PIM-SSM)
PIM Bidirectional Mode (Bidir-PIM)

What are PIM Control messages?

Messages that use IP Protocol 103, either unicast for register and register stop messages or Multicast, with a TTL of 1 to the all routers address 224.0.0.13

What is PIM Dense Mode?

In PIM Dense Mode it is assumed that Multicast receivers are located on every subnet on the network.
The source floods the traffic out each interface from the source to the Dense Mode routers in the network.
The router stays quit and forwards the multicast traffic unless it doesn't have any receivers, then it will return a Prune message and the branch will be pruned of the Tree.
In this case the tree will be a source tree.

What is PIM Sparse Mode?

PIM Sparse Mode works the other way around vs PIM Dense Mode. Routers wait for Receivers to explicitly send an IGMP Join to the Last Hop Routers before the Tree is built.
In essence this can create two trees, a Source Tree between the Source and the RP and a Shared Tree between the Receiver and the RP.

In PIM-SM a router has a default DR Priority Value. What is this value and what is it used for?

The default value is 1 and this can be changed, where higher is preferred.
It is used to select a Designated Router in the case of Multiple PIM-SM routers on the same LAN segment.

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