Multicast Router Discovery
Nortel Networks
B. Haberman
The concept of IGMP snooping requires the ability to identify the location of multicast routers. Since IGMP (and MLD) snooping is not standardized, there are many mechanisms in use to identify the multicast routers. However, this scenario can lead to interoperability issues between multicast routers and layer-2 switches from different vendors. This document introduces a general mechanism that allows for the discovery of multicast routers. By introducing these new messages, snooping devices have a uniform means of identifying multicast routers without dependency on particular routing protocols. These messages may also be used to convey configuration parameters to all systems on a network. In addition, other devices that may need to discover multicast routers can utilize these messages.