multicast

This document describes a Precision Time Protocol (PTP) Profile (IEEE Standard 1588-2019) for use in an IPv4 or IPv6 enterprise information system environment. The PTP Profile uses the End-to-End delay measurement mechanism, allowing both multicast and unicast Delay Request and Delay Response messages.

This document updates the 6LoWPAN extensions to IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (specified in RFCs 4861 and 8505) to enable a listener to subscribe to an IPv6 anycast or multicast address. This document also updates the Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) (specified in RFCs 6550 and 6553) to add a new Non-Storing multicast mode and new support for anycast addresses in Storing and Non-Storing modes. This document extends RFC 9010 to enable a 6LoWPAN Router (6LR) to inject the anycast and multicast addresses in RPL.

Ethernet VPN (EVPN) provides a service that allows a single Local Area Network (LAN), comprising a single IP subnet, to be divided into multiple segments. Each segment may be located at a different site, and the segments are interconnected by an IP or MPLS backbone. Intra-subnet traffic (either unicast or multicast) always appears to the end users to be bridged, even when it is actually carried over the IP or MPLS backbone. When a single tenant owns multiple such LANs, EVPN also allows IP unicast traffic to be routed between those LANs. This document specifies new procedures that allow inter-subnet IP multicast traffic to be routed among the LANs of a given tenant while still making intra-subnet IP multicast traffic appear to be bridged. These procedures can provide optimal routing of the inter-subnet multicast traffic and do not require any such traffic to egress a given router and then ingress that same router. These procedures also accommodate IP multicast traffic that originates or is destined to be external to the EVPN domain.

This document specifies two solutions to meet the requirements of on-path telemetry for multicast traffic using IOAM. While IOAM is advantageous for multicast traffic telemetry, some unique challenges are present. This document provides the solutions based on the IOAM trace option and direct export option to support the telemetry data correlation and the multicast tree reconstruction without incurring data redundancy.

This document specifies updated procedures for handling Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, or Multicast (BUM) traffic in Ethernet VPNs (EVPNs), including selective multicast and segmentation of provider tunnels. This document updates RFC 7432.

This document relaxes the packet verification rules defined in "MAC Authentication for the Babel Routing Protocol" (RFC 8967) in order to make the protocol more robust in the presence of packet reordering. This document updates RFC 8967.

Well-known issues with multicast have prevented the deployment of multicast in 802.11 (Wi-Fi) and other local-area wireless environments. This document describes the known limitations of wireless (primarily 802.11) Layer 2 multicast. Also described are certain multicast enhancement features that have been specified by the IETF and by IEEE 802 for wireless media, as well as some operational choices that can be made to improve the performance of the network. Finally, some recommendations are provided about the usage and combination of these features and operational choices.

Point-to-multipoint (P2MP) Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is designed to verify multipoint connectivity. This document specifies the support of P2MP BFD in Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL). Similar to TRILL point-to-point BFD, BFD Control packets in TRILL P2MP BFD are transmitted using RBridge Channel messages. This document updates RFCs 7175 and 7177.

Allied Communications Publication (ACP) 142 defines P_MUL, which is a protocol for reliable multicast suitable for bandwidth-constrained and delayed acknowledgement (Emissions Control or "EMCON") environments running over UDP. This document defines MULE (Multicast Email), an application protocol for transferring Internet Mail messages (as described in RFC 5322) over P_MUL (as defined in ACP 142). MULE enables transfer between Message Transfer Agents (MTAs). It doesn't provide a service similar to SMTP Submission (as described in RFC 6409).

This document explains how MULE can be used in conjunction with SMTP (RFC 5321), including some common SMTP extensions, to provide an alternate MTA-to-MTA transfer mechanism.

This is not an IETF specification; it describes an existing implementation. It is provided in order to facilitate interoperable implementations and third-party diagnostics.

A number of application-layer protocols make use of IP broadcast or multicast messages for functions such as local service discovery or name resolution. Some of these functions can only be implemented efficiently using such mechanisms. When using broadcast or multicast messages, a passive observer in the same broadcast or multicast domain can trivially record these messages and analyze their content. Therefore, designers of protocols that make use of broadcast or multicast messages need to take special care when designing their protocols.

When multicast sources and receivers are active at Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) sites, the core network is required to use native multicast so packets can be delivered from sources to group members. When multicast is not available to connect the multicast sites together, a signal-free mechanism can be used to allow traffic to flow between sites. The mechanism described in this document uses unicast replication and encapsulation over the core network for the data plane and uses the LISP mapping database system so encapsulators at the source LISP multicast site can find decapsulators at the receiver LISP multicast sites.

In Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) active-active access, a Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) check failure issue may occur when using the pseudo-nickname mechanism specified in RFC 7781. This document describes a solution to resolve this RPF check failure issue through centralized replication. All ingress Routing Bridges (RBridges) send Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, and Multicast (BUM) traffic to a centralized node with unicast TRILL encapsulation. When the centralized node receives the BUM traffic, it decapsulates the packets and forwards them to their destination RBridges using a distribution tree established per the TRILL base protocol (RFC 6325). To avoid RPF check failure on an RBridge sitting between the ingress RBridge and the centralized replication node, some change in the RPF calculation algorithm is required. RPF checks on each RBridge MUST be calculated as if the centralized node was the ingress RBridge, instead of being calculated using the actual ingress RBridge. This document updates RFC 6325.

This document provides a framework for supporting multicast traffic in a network that uses Network Virtualization over Layer 3 (NVO3). Both infrastructure multicast and application-specific multicast are discussed. It describes the various mechanisms that can be used for delivering such traffic as well as the data plane and control plane considerations for each of the mechanisms.

This document analyzes security threats to Simplified Multicast Forwarding (SMF), including vulnerabilities of duplicate packet detection and relay set selection mechanisms. This document is not intended to propose solutions to the threats described.

In addition, this document updates RFC 7186 regarding threats to the relay set selection mechanisms using the Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) Neighborhood Discovery Protocol (NHDP) (RFC 6130).

TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) uses distribution trees to deliver multi-destination frames. Multiple trees can be used by an ingress Routing Bridge (RBridge) for flows, regardless of the VLAN, Fine-Grained Label (FGL), and/or multicast group of the flow. Different ingress RBridges may choose different distribution trees for TRILL Data packets in the same VLAN, FGL, and/or multicast group. To avoid unnecessary link utilization, distribution trees should be pruned based on one or more of the following: VLAN, FGL, or multicast destination address. If any VLAN, FGL, or multicast group can be sent on any tree, for typical fast-path hardware, the amount of pruning information is multiplied by the number of trees, but there is limited hardware capacity for such pruning information.

This document specifies an optional facility to restrict the TRILL Data packets sent on particular distribution trees by VLAN, FGL, and/or multicast groups, thus reducing the total amount of pruning information so that it can more easily be accommodated by fast-path hardware.

The BGP-based control procedures for Multicast Virtual Private Networks (MVPNs) make use of a BGP attribute known as the "P-Multicast Service Interface (PMSI) Tunnel" attribute. The attribute contains a one-octet "Flags" field. The purpose of this document is to establish an IANA registry for the assignment of the bits in this field. Since the "Flags" field contains only eight bits, this document also defines a new BGP Extended Community, "Additional PMSI Tunnel Attribute Flags", that can be used to carry additional flags for the "P-Multicast Service Interface (PMSI) Tunnel" attribute. This document updates RFC 6514.

This document defines a way to configure a parameter set for MPL (Multicast Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) via a DHCPv6 option. MPL has a set of parameters to control its behavior, and the parameter set is often configured as a network-wide parameter because the parameter set should be identical for each MPL Forwarder in an MPL Domain. Using the MPL Parameter Configuration Option defined in this document, a network can easily be configured with a single set of MPL parameters.

Since the publication of the TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) base protocol in 2011, active development and deployment of TRILL have revealed errata in RFC 6325 and areas that could use clarifications or updates. RFC 7177, RFC 7357, and an intended replacement of RFC 6439 provide clarifications and updates with respect to adjacency, the TRILL ESADI (End Station Address Distribution Information) protocol, and Appointed Forwarders, respectively. This document provides other known clarifications, corrections, and updates. It obsoletes RFC 7180 (the previous "TRILL clarifications, corrections, and updates" RFC), and it updates RFCs 6325, 7177, and 7179.

TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) facilitates loop-free connectivity to non-TRILL networks via a choice of an Appointed Forwarder for a set of VLANs. Appointed Forwarders provide VLAN-based load sharing with an active-standby model. High-performance applications require an active-active load-sharing model. The active-active load-sharing model can be accomplished by representing any given non-TRILL network with a single virtual RBridge (also referred to as a virtual Routing Bridge or virtual TRILL switch). Virtual representation of the non-TRILL network with a single RBridge poses serious challenges in multi-destination RPF (Reverse Path Forwarding) check calculations. This document specifies required enhancements to build Coordinated Multicast Trees (CMT) within the TRILL campus to solve related RPF issues. CMT, which only requires a software upgrade, provides flexibility to RBridges in selecting a desired path of association to a given TRILL multi-destination distribution tree. This document updates RFC 6325.

This document specifies the Multicast Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (MPL), which provides IPv6 multicast forwarding in constrained networks. MPL avoids the need to construct or maintain any multicast forwarding topology, disseminating messages to all MPL Forwarders in an MPL Domain.

MPL has two modes of operation. One mode uses the Trickle algorithm to manage control-plane and data-plane message transmissions and is applicable for deployments with few multicast sources. The other mode uses classic flooding. By providing both modes and parameterization of the Trickle algorithm, an MPL implementation can be used in a variety of multicast deployments and can trade between dissemination latency and transmission efficiency.

The purpose of this document is to specify an automated policy for the routing of Multicast Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (MPL) multicast messages with Admin-Local scope in a border router.

During the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, customer equipment may have to support one of the various transition methods that have been defined for carrying IPv4 packets over IPv6. This document enumerates the information that needs to be provisioned on a customer edge router to support a list of transition techniques based on tunneling IPv4 in IPv6, with a view to defining reusable components for a reasonable transition path between these techniques. To the extent that the provisioning is done dynamically, Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) support is needed to provide the information to the network server responsible for passing the information to the customer equipment. This document specifies Diameter (RFC 6733) Attribute-Value Pairs (AVPs) to be used for that purpose.

As IPTV deployments grow in number and size, service providers are looking for solutions that minimize the service disruption due to faults in the IP network carrying the packets for these services. This document describes a mechanism for minimizing packet loss in a network when node or link failures occur. Multicast-only Fast Reroute (MoFRR) works by making simple enhancements to multicast routing protocols such as Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) and Multipoint LDP (mLDP).

There are scenarios in which an IP multicast tree traverses an MPLS domain. In these scenarios, it can be desirable to convert the IP multicast tree "seamlessly" into an MPLS Multipoint Label Switched Path (MP-LSP) when it enters the MPLS domain, and then to convert it back to an IP multicast tree when it exits the MPLS domain. Previous documents specify procedures that allow certain kinds of IP multicast trees (either Source-Specific Multicast trees or Bidirectional Multicast trees) to be attached to an MPLS Multipoint Label Switched Path (MP-LSP). However, the previous documents do not specify procedures for attaching IP Any-Source Multicast trees to MP-LSPs, nor do they specify procedures for aggregating multiple IP multicast trees onto a single MP-LSP. This document specifies the procedures to support these functions. It does so by defining "wildcard" encodings that make it possible to specify, when setting up an MP- LSP, that a set of IP multicast trees, or a shared IP multicast tree, should be attached to that MP-LSP. Support for non-bidirectional IP Any-Source Multicast trees is subject to certain applicability restrictions that are discussed in this document. This document updates RFCs 6826 and 7246.

The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a specialized web transfer protocol for constrained devices and constrained networks. It is anticipated that constrained devices will often naturally operate in groups (e.g., in a building automation scenario, all lights in a given room may need to be switched on/off as a group). This specification defines how CoAP should be used in a group communication context. An approach for using CoAP on top of IP multicast is detailed based on existing CoAP functionality as well as new features introduced in this specification. Also, various use cases and corresponding protocol flows are provided to illustrate important concepts. Finally, guidance is provided for deployment in various network topologies.

This memo defines a portion of the Management Information Base (MIB) for use with network management protocols in the Internet community. In particular, it describes objects for configuring aspects of the Simplified Multicast Forwarding (SMF) process for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). The SMF-MIB module also reports state information, performance information, and notifications. In addition to configuration, the additional state and performance information is useful to operators troubleshooting multicast forwarding problems.

RFC 6514 created a space of Tunnel Type code points for a new BGP attribute called the "P-Multicast Service Interface Tunnel (PMSI Tunnel) attribute". However, the RFC did not create a corresponding IANA registry.

There now is need to make further code point allocations from this name space. This document serves to update RFC 6514 in that it creates an IANA registry for that purpose.

This document updates the IPv6 multicast addressing architecture by redefining the reserved bits as generic flag bits. The document also provides some clarifications related to the use of these flag bits.

This document updates RFCs 3956, 3306, and 4291.

This document updates the definitions of IPv6 multicast scopes and therefore updates RFCs 4007 and 4291.

This document specifies the extensions to the Access Node Control Protocol (ANCP) (RFC 6320) required for support of the multicast use cases defined in the Access Node Control Protocol framework document (RFC 5851) and one additional use case described in this document. These use cases are organized into the following ANCP capabilities:

o multicast replication initiated by the Network Access Server (NAS);

o conditional access and admission control with white and black lists;

o conditional access and admission control with grey lists;

o bandwidth delegation; and

o committed bandwidth reporting.

These capabilities may be combined according to the rules given in this specification.

This document updates RFC 6320 by assigning capability type 3 to a capability specified in this document and by changing the starting point for IANA allocation of result codes determined by IETF Consensus from 0x100 to 0x64.

Multicast communication can be enabled in Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) domains via the Local Mobility Anchors by deploying Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) proxy functions at Mobile Access Gateways, by using direct traffic distribution within an ISP's access network, or by selective route optimization schemes. This document describes a base solution and an experimental protocol to support mobile multicast senders in PMIPv6 domains for all three scenarios. Protocol optimizations for synchronizing PMIPv6 with PIM, as well as a peering function for MLD proxies are defined. Mobile sources always remain agnostic of multicast mobility operations.

The IETF Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) protocol provides optimal pair-wise data frame forwarding without configuration in multi-hop networks with arbitrary topology and link technology; it also provides support for multipathing of both unicast and multicast traffic. This document specifies the data formats and code points for the IS-IS extensions to support TRILL. These data formats and code points may also be used by technologies other than TRILL. This document obsoletes RFC 6326.

This document specifies an experimental multicast handover optimization mechanism for Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) to accelerate the delivery of multicast traffic to mobile nodes after handovers. The mechanism, called Subscription Information Acquisition through the LMA (SIAL), is based on speeding up the acquisition of mobile nodes' multicast context by the mobile access gateways. To do that, extensions to the current PMIPv6 protocol are proposed. These extensions are not only applicable to the base solution for multicast support in Proxy Mobile IPv6, but they can also be applied to other solutions developed to avoid the tunnel convergence problem. Furthermore, these extensions are also independent of the role played by the mobile access gateway within the multicast network (acting as either multicast listener discovery proxy or multicast router).

RFCs 4761 and 4762 describe a solution for Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) multicast that relies on the use of point-to-point or multipoint-to-point unicast Label Switched Paths (LSPs) for carrying multicast traffic. This solution has certain limitations for certain VPLS multicast traffic profiles. For example, it may result in highly non-optimal bandwidth utilization when a large amount of multicast traffic is to be transported.

This document describes solutions for overcoming a subset of the limitations of the existing VPLS multicast solution. It describes procedures for VPLS multicast that utilize multicast trees in the service provider (SP) network. The solution described in this document allows sharing of one such multicast tree among multiple VPLS instances. Furthermore, the solution described in this document allows a single multicast tree in the SP network to carry traffic belonging only to a specified set of one or more IP multicast streams from one or more VPLS instances.

Group communication services exist in a large variety of flavors and technical implementations at different protocol layers. Multicast data distribution is most efficiently performed on the lowest available layer, but a heterogeneous deployment status of multicast technologies throughout the Internet requires an adaptive service binding at runtime. Today, it is difficult to write an application that runs everywhere and at the same time makes use of the most efficient multicast service available in the network. Facing robustness requirements, developers are frequently forced to use a stable upper-layer protocol provided by the application itself. This document describes a common multicast API that is suitable for transparent communication in underlay and overlay and that grants access to the different flavors of multicast. It proposes an abstract naming scheme that uses multicast URIs, and it discusses mapping mechanisms between different namespaces and distribution technologies. Additionally, this document describes the application of this API for building gateways that interconnect current Multicast Domains throughout the Internet. It reports on an implementation of the programming Interface, including service middleware. This document is a product of the Scalable Adaptive Multicast (SAM) Research Group.

We define a REsource LOcation And Discovery (RELOAD) Usage for Application-Layer Multicast (ALM) as well as a mapping to the RELOAD experimental message type to support ALM. The ALM Usage is intended to support a variety of ALM control algorithms in an overlay-independent way. Two example algorithms are defined, based on Scribe and P2PCast.

This document is a product of the Scalable Adaptive Multicast Research Group (SAM RG).

This document describes how inter-domain multicast routing will function in an environment where Locator/ID Separation is deployed using the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) architecture. This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This document discusses which multicast addresses should be used for documentation purposes and reserves multicast addresses for such use. Some multicast addresses are derived from AS numbers or unicast addresses. This document also explains how these can be used for documentation purposes. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

The Rapid Acquisition of Multicast RTP Sessions (RAMS) solution is a method based on RTP and the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) that enables an RTP receiver to rapidly acquire and start consuming the RTP multicast data. Upon a request from the RTP receiver, an auxiliary unicast RTP retransmission session is set up between a retransmission server and the RTP receiver, over which the reference information about the new multicast stream the RTP receiver is about to join is transmitted at an accelerated rate. This often precedes, but may also accompany, the multicast stream itself. When there is only one multicast stream to be acquired, the RAMS solution works in a straightforward manner. However, when there are two or more multicast streams to be acquired from the same or different multicast RTP sessions, care should be taken to configure each RAMS session appropriately. This document provides example scenarios and discusses how the RAMS solution could be used in such scenarios. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

This document describes a Simplified Multicast Forwarding (SMF) mechanism that provides basic Internet Protocol (IP) multicast forwarding suitable for limited wireless mesh and mobile ad hoc network (MANET) use. It is mainly applicable in situations where efficient flooding represents an acceptable engineering design trade-off. It defines techniques for multicast duplicate packet detection (DPD), to be applied in the forwarding process, for both IPv4 and IPv6 protocol use. This document also specifies optional mechanisms for using reduced relay sets to achieve more efficient multicast data distribution within a mesh topology as compared to Classic Flooding. Interactions with other protocols, such as use of information provided by concurrently running unicast routing protocols or interaction with other multicast protocols, as well as multiple deployment approaches are also described. Distributed algorithms for selecting reduced relay sets and related discussion are provided in the appendices. Basic issues relating to the operation of multicast MANET border routers are discussed, but ongoing work remains in this area and is beyond the scope of this document. This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This document lists a set of functional requirements that served as input to the design of Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) extensions for setting up point-to-multipoint (P2MP) Label Switched Paths (LSP), in order to deliver point-to-multipoint applications over a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) infrastructure.

This work was overtaken by the protocol solution developed by the MPLS working group, but that solution did not closely follow the requirements documented here. This document is published as a historic record of the ideas and requirements that shaped the protocol work. This document defines a Historic Document for the Internet community.

This document presents a port mapping solution that allows RTP receivers to choose their own ports for an auxiliary unicast session in RTP applications using both unicast and multicast services. The solution provides protection against denial-of-service or packet amplification attacks that could be used to cause one or more RTP packets to be sent to a victim client. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This document presents the China Education and Research Network (CERNET)'s IVI translation design and deployment for the IPv4/IPv6 coexistence and transition.

The IVI is a prefix-specific and stateless address mapping mechanism for "an IPv6 network to the IPv4 Internet" and "the IPv4 Internet to an IPv6 network" scenarios. In the IVI design, subsets of the ISP's IPv4 addresses are embedded in the ISP's IPv6 addresses, and the hosts using these IPv6 addresses can therefore communicate with the global IPv6 Internet directly and can communicate with the global IPv4 Internet via stateless translators. The communications can either be IPv6 initiated or IPv4 initiated. The IVI mechanism supports the end-to-end address transparency and incremental deployment. The IVI is an early design deployed in the CERNET as a reference for the IETF standard documents on IPv4/IPv6 stateless translation. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

When transmitting an IPv6 packet with a multicast destination address, the IPv6 destination address is mapped to an Ethernet link-layer multicast address. This document clarifies that a mapping of an IPv6 packet with a multicast destination address may in some circumstances map to an Ethernet link-layer unicast address. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The Packet-switched Streaming Service (PSS) and the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) defined by 3GPP use the Session Description Protocol (SDP) and Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) with some extensions. This document provides information about these extensions and registers the RTSP and SDP extensions with IANA. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

This specification defines an extension to the multicast addressing architecture of the IP Version 4 protocol. The extension presented in this document allows for unicast-prefix-based assignment of multicast addresses. By delegating multicast addresses at the same time as unicast prefixes, network operators will be able to identify their multicast addresses without needing to run an inter-domain allocation protocol. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The purpose of this document is to define a framework for an Access Node Control Mechanism between a Network Access Server (NAS) and an Access Node (e.g., a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM)) in a multi-service reference architecture in order to perform operations related to service, quality of service, and subscribers. The Access Node Control Mechanism will ensure that the transmission of the information does not need to go through distinct element managers but rather uses a direct device-device communication. This allows for performing access-link-related operations within those network elements, while avoiding impact on the existing Operational Support Systems.

This document first identifies a number of use cases for which the Access Node Control Mechanism may be appropriate. It then presents the requirements for the Access Node Control Protocol (ANCP) that must be taken into account during protocol design. Finally, it describes requirements for the network elements that need to support ANCP and the described use cases. These requirements should be seen as guidelines rather than as absolute requirements. RFC 2119 therefore does not apply to the nodal requirements. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

This document provides guidance for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) in assigning IPv4 multicast addresses. It obsoletes RFC 3171 and RFC 3138 and updates RFC 2780. This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.

The IETF has standardized IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) for measuring end-to-end performance between two points. This memo defines two new categories of metrics that extend the coverage to multiple measurement points. It defines spatial metrics for measuring the performance of segments of a source to destination path, and metrics for measuring the performance between a source and many destinations in multiparty communications (e.g., a multicast tree). [STANDARDS-TRACK]

RFC 3032 established two data link layer codepoints for MPLS, used to distinguish whether the data link layer frame is carrying an MPLS unicast or an MPLS multicast packet. However, this usage was never deployed. This specification updates RFC 3032 by redefining the meaning of these two codepoints. Both codepoints can now be used to carry multicast packets. The second codepoint (formerly the "multicast codepoint") is now to be used only on multiaccess media, and it is to mean "the top label of the following label stack is an upstream-assigned label".

RFC 3032 does not specify the destination address to be placed in the "MAC DA" (Medium Access Layer Destination Address) field of an ethernet frame that carries an MPLS multicast packet. This document provides that specification.

This document updates RFC 3032 and RFC 4023. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This document specifies requirements for a for a Network Address Translator (NAT) and a Network Address Port Translator (NAPT) that support Any Source IP Multicast or Source-Specific IP Multicast. An IP multicast-capable NAT device that adheres to the requirements of this document can optimize the operation of IP multicast applications that are generally unaware of IP multicast NAT devices. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.

This document describes multicast routing architectures that are currently deployed on the Internet. This document briefly describes those protocols and references their specifications.

This memo also reclassifies several older RFCs to Historic. These RFCs describe multicast routing protocols that were never widely deployed or have fallen into disuse. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This memo defines a portion of the Management Information Base (MIB) for use with network management protocols in the Internet community. In particular, it describes objects used for managing multicast function, independent of the specific multicast protocol(s) in use. This document obsoletes RFC 2932. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

While traditional IP multicast schemes (RFC 1112) are scalable for very large multicast groups, they have scalability issues with a very large number of distinct multicast groups. This document describes Xcast (Explicit Multi-unicast), a new multicast scheme with complementary scaling properties: Xcast supports a very large number of small multicast sessions. Xcast achieves this by explicitly encoding the list of destinations in the data packets, instead of using a multicast group address.

This document discusses Xcast concepts and options in several areas; it does not provide a complete technical specification. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This document describes a scheme to packetize an H.263 video stream for transport using the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) with any of the underlying protocols that carry RTP.

The document also describes the syntax and semantics of the Session Description Protocol (SDP) parameters needed to support the H.263 video codec.

The document obsoletes RFC 2429 and updates the H263-1998 and H263-2000 MIME media type in RFC 3555. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The goal of Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR) is to enable name resolution in scenarios in which conventional DNS name resolution is not possible. LLMNR supports all current and future DNS formats, types, and classes, while operating on a separate port from DNS, and with a distinct resolver cache. Since LLMNR only operates on the local link, it cannot be considered a substitute for DNS. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This memo specifies requirements for a framework and protocols for accessing and updating Internet Media Guide (IMG) information for media-on-demand and multicast applications. These requirements are designed to guide choice and development of IMG protocols for efficient and scalable delivery. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document specifies an extension to the multicast addressing architecture of the IPv6 protocol. The extension allows the use of Interface Identifiers (IIDs) to allocate multicast addresses. When a link-local unicast address is configured at each interface of a node, an IID is uniquely determined. After that, each node can generate its unique multicast addresses automatically without conflicts. The alternative method for creating link-local multicast addresses proposed in this document is better than known methods like unicast-prefix-based IPv6 multicast addresses. This memo updates RFC 3306. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This specification defines the addressing architecture of the IP Version 6 (IPv6) protocol. The document includes the IPv6 addressing model, text representations of IPv6 addresses, definition of IPv6 unicast addresses, anycast addresses, and multicast addresses, and an IPv6 node's required addresses.

This document obsoletes RFC 3513, "IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture". [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This memo defines a portion of the Management Information Base (MIB) for use with network management protocols in TCP/IP-based internets. In particular, it defines two MIB modules for managing the capabilities of MAC bridges defined by the IEEE 802.1D-1998 (TM) MAC Bridges and the IEEE 802.1Q-2003 (TM) Virtual LAN (VLAN) standards for bridging between Local Area Network (LAN) segments. One MIB module defines objects for managing the 'Traffic Classes' and 'Enhanced Multicast Filtering' components of IEEE 802.1D-1998 and P802.1t-2001 (TM). The other MIB module defines objects for managing VLANs, as specified in IEEE 802.1Q-2003, P802.1u (TM), and P802.1v (TM).

Provisions are made for support of transparent bridging. Provisions are also made so that these objects apply to bridges connected by subnetworks other than LAN segments.

This memo supplements RFC 4188 and obsoletes RFC 2674. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This document defines new options to discover the Broadcast and Multicast Service (BCMCS) controller in an IP network. BCMCS is being developed for Third generation (3G) cellular telephone networks. Users of the service interact with a controller in the network via the Mobile Node (MN) to derive information required to receive Broadcast and Multicast Service. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol can be used to configure the MN to access a particular controller. This document defines the related options and option codes. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) provides a method for tunneling PPP packets. This document describes an extension to L2TP, to make efficient use of L2TP tunnels within the context of deploying multicast services whose data will have to be conveyed by these tunnels. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This memo defines an address allocation policy in which the address of the Rendezvous Point (RP) is encoded in an IPv6 multicast group address. For Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM), this can be seen as a specification of a group-to-RP mapping mechanism. This allows an easy deployment of scalable inter-domain multicast and simplifies the intra-domain multicast configuration as well. This memo updates the addressing format presented in RFC 3306. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The purpose of this document is to describe methodology specific to the benchmarking of multicast IP forwarding devices. It builds upon the tenets set forth in RFC 2544, RFC 2432 and other IETF Benchmarking Methodology Working Group (BMWG) efforts. This document seeks to extend these efforts to the multicast paradigm.

The BMWG produces two major classes of documents: Benchmarking Terminology documents and Benchmarking Methodology documents. The Terminology documents present the benchmarks and other related terms. The Methodology documents define the procedures required to collect the benchmarks cited in the corresponding Terminology documents. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document discusses the problems of IP Multicast use in Differentiated Services (DS) networks, expanding on the discussion in RFC 2475 ("An Architecture of Differentiated Services"). It also suggests possible solutions to these problems, describes a potential implementation model, and presents simulation results. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document describes the Router-port Group Management Protocol (RGMP). This protocol was developed by Cisco Systems and is used between multicast routers and switches to restrict multicast packet forwarding in switches to those routers where the packets may be needed. RGMP is designed for backbone switched networks where multiple, high speed routers are interconnected. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This specification defines an extension to the multicast addressing

architecture of the IP Version 6 protocol. The extension presented

in this document allows for unicast-prefix-based allocation of

multicast addresses. By delegating multicast addresses at the same

time as unicast prefixes, network operators will be able to identify

their multicast addresses without needing to run an inter-domain

allocation protocol.

This document offers a framework for IP multicast deployment in an

MPLS environment. Issues arising when MPLS techniques are applied to

IP multicast are overviewed. The pros and cons of existing IP

multicast routing protocols in the context of MPLS are described and

the relation to the different trigger methods and label distribution

modes are discussed. The consequences of various layer 2 (L2)

technologies are listed. Both point-to-point and multi-access

networks are considered.

This document defines a mechanism by which two entities can make use of the Session Description Protocol (SDP) to arrive at a common view of a multimedia session between them. In the model, one participant offers the other a description of the desired session from their perspective, and the other participant answers with the desired session from their perspective. This offer/answer model is most useful in unicast sessions where information from both participants is needed for the complete view of the session. The offer/answer model is used by protocols like the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This document describes the General Switch Management Protocol Version 3 (GSMPv3). The GSMPv3 is an asymmetric protocol that allows one or more external switch controllers to establish and maintain the state of a label switch such as, an ATM, frame relay or MPLS switch. The GSMPv3 allows control of both unicast and multicast switch connection state as well as control of switch system resources and QoS features. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The local Message Bus (Mbus) is a light-weight message-oriented coordination protocol for group communication between application components. The Mbus provides automatic location of communication peers, subject based addressing, reliable message transfer and different types of communication schemes. The protocol is layered on top of IP multicast and is specified for IPv4 and IPv6. The IP multicast scope is limited to link-local multicast. This document specifies the Mbus protocol, i.e., message syntax, addressing and transport mechanisms. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document describes the challenges involved with designing and implementing multicast applications. It is an introductory guide for application developers that highlights the unique considerations of multicast applications as compared to unicast applications. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document defines the policy for the use of 233/8 for statically e assigned multicast addresses. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.

The effect of multipath routing on a forwarder is that the forwarder potentially has several next-hops for any given destination and must use some method to choose which next-hop should be used for a given data packet. This memo summarizes current practices, problems, and solutions. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document defines a protocol, the Multicast-Scope Zone Announcement Protocol (MZAP), for discovering the multicast administrative scope zones that are relevant at a particular location. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The intention of this memo is to define a classification system for the communication requirements of any large-scale multicast application (LSMA). This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document specifies how to use IEEE Std 1394-1995, Standard for a High Performance Serial Bus (and its supplements), for the transport of Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) datagrams; it defines the necessary methods, data structures and codes for that purpose. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The rules described in this document will allow efficient interoperation among multiple independent multicast routing domains. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This memo defines how ILMI-based Server Discovery, which provides a method for ATM-attached hosts and routers to dynamically determine the ATM addresses of servers, shall be used to locate MARS servers. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This report contains a discussion of the difficult problem of key management for multicast communication sessions. It focuses on two main areas of concern with respect to key management, which are, initializing the multicast group with a common net key and rekeying the multicast group. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

In this document, we discuss the issues surrounding the traversal of IP multicast traffic across a firewall, and describe possible ways in which a firewall can implement and control this traversal. We also explain why some firewall mechanisms - such as SOCKS - that were designed specifically for unicast traffic, are less appropriate for multicast. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This memo defines services that LSMA has found to be required, and aspects of the Internet protocols that LSMA has found to need further development in order to meet these requirements. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document describes a detailed model of IPv4 multicast with RSVP that has been developed using the OPNET simulation package, with protocol procedures defined in the C language. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This document specifies the RTP payload format for encapsulating ITU Recommendation BT.656-3 video streams in the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP). [STANDARDS-TRACK]

The purpose of this document is to define terminology specific to the benchmarking of multicast IP forwarding devices. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

This memo specifies a MIB module in a manner that is both compliant to the SNMPv2 SMI, and semantically identical to the peer SNMPv1 definitions. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This document defines the "administratively scoped IPv4 multicast space" to be the range 239.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. In addition, it describes a simple set of semantics for the implementation of Administratively Scoped IP Multicast. Finally, it provides a mapping between the IPv6 multicast address classes [RFC1884] and IPv4 multicast address classes. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.

This document defines the initial assignment of IPv6 multicast addresses. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This document is intended to state the obvious equivalences, and explain the less obvious implications. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This document describes the Core Based Tree (CBT version 2) network layer multicast routing protocol. CBT builds a shared multicast distribution tree per group, and is suited to inter- and intra-domain multicast routing. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This document focuses exclusively on the problems associated with extending the MARS model to cover multiple clusters or clusters spanning more than one subnet. It describes a hypothetical solution, dubbed "Very Extensive NonUnicast Service" (VENUS), and shows how complex such a service would be. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

CBT is a multicast routing architecture that builds a single delivery tree per group which is shared by all of the group's senders and receivers. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This memo describes version 1 of RSVP, a resource reservation setup protocol designed for an integrated services Internet. RSVP provides receiver-initiated setup of resource reservations for multicast or unicast data flows, with good scaling and robustness properties. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This memo provides details on the design and implementation of an MCS, building on the core mechanisms defined in RFC 2022. It also provides a mechanism for using multiple MCSs per group for providing fault tolerance. This approach can be used with RFC 2022 based MARS server and clients, without needing any change in their functionality. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This document provides a qualitative look at the issues constraining a MARS Cluster's size, including the impact of VC limits in switches and NICs, geographical distribution of cluster members, and the use of VC Mesh or MCS modes to support multicast groups. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This document describes a new TFTP option. This new option will allow the multiple clients to receive the same file concurrently through the use of Multicast packets. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

Nimrod does not specify a particular solution for multicasting. Rather, Nimrod may use any of a number of emerging multicast techniques. We identify the requirements that Nimrod has of a solution for multicast support. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This memo describes a mechanism to support the multicast needs of Layer 3 protocols in general, and describes its application to IP multicasting in particular. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This memo provides a scalable solution to the multicast key distribution problem. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

This memo documents how the MOSPF protocol satisfies the requirements imposed on Internet routing protocols by "Internet Engineering Task Force internet routing protocol standardization criteria" ([RFC 1264]). This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This document specifies a method for the transmission of IP multicast datagrams over Token-Ring Local Area Networks. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

This memo discusses some of these unresolved issues, and provides a high-level design for a new multicast transport protocol, group address and membership authority, and modifications to existing routing protocols. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard.

This memo describes a protocol for reliable transport that utilizes the multicast capability of applicable lower layer networking architectures. The transport definition permits an arbitrary number of transport providers to perform realtime collaborations without requiring networking clients (aka, applications) to possess detailed knowledge of the population or geographical dispersion of the participating members. It is not network architectural specific, but does implicitly require some form of multicasting (or broadcasting) at the data link level, as well as some means of communicating that capability up through the layers to the transport. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard.

This RFC describes a distance-vector-style routing protocol for routing multicast datagrams through an internet. It is derived from the Routing Information Protocol (RIP), and implements multicasting as described in RFC-1054. This is an experimental protocol, and its implementation is not recommended at this time.

This memo specifies the Versatile Message Transaction Protocol (VMTP) [Version 0.7 of 19-Feb-88], a transport protocol specifically designed to support the transaction model of communication, as exemplified by remote procedure call (RPC). The full function of VMTP, including support for security, real-time, asynchronous message exchanges, streaming, multicast and idempotency, provides a rich selection to the VMTP user level. Subsettability allows the VMTP module for particular clients and servers to be specialized and simplified to the services actually required. Examples of such simple clients and servers include PROM network bootload programs, network boot servers, data sensors and simple controllers, to mention but a few examples. This RFC describes a protocol proposed as a standard for the Internet community.

This memo describes a collection of multicast communication primitives integrated with a mechanism for handling process failure and recovery. These primitives facilitate the implementation of fault-tolerant process groups, which can be used to provide distributed services in an environment subject to non-malicious crash failures.