Internet Draft Rick Boivie
Expires: January 2001 Nancy Feldman
IBM Watson Research Center
July 2000
Small Group Multicast
<draft-boivie-sgm-01.txt>
Status of this Memo
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Abstract
Multicast has become increasingly important with the emergence of
network-based applications such as IP telephony and video
conferencing. The Internet community has done a significant amount
of work on IP multicast over the last decade [1-10] and as a
result, there are a number of multicast applications that are used
today on the Mbone, the multicast-capable virtual network that is
layered on top of (portions of) the Internet [10]. However, while
today's multicast schemes are scaleable in the sense that they can
support very large multicast groups, there are scalability issues
when a network needs to support a very large number of distinct
multicast groups. This document describes a new scheme for
multicast that complements the existing schemes. Whereas the
existing schemes can support a limited number of very large
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multicast groups, the scheme described here can support a very
large number of small multicast groups.
1. Introduction
Multicast, the ability to efficiently send data to a group of
destinations, is becoming increasingly important for applications
such as IP telephony, video-conferencing, video distribution,
collaborative work environments, multiparty networked games, etc.
There seem to be two kinds of multicasts that are important: a
broadcast-like multicast that sends data to a very large number of
destinations and a "narrowcast" multicast that sends data to a
fairly small group. An example of the first is the audio & video
multicasting of a working group session from an IETF meeting to
sites all around the world. An example of the second is a
videoconference involving 3 or 4 parties. For reasons described
below, it seems prudent to use different mechanisms for these two
cases. As the reliable multicast transport group has stated: "it
is believed that a 'one size fits all' protocol will be unable to
meet the requirements of all applications" [11].
1.1. Current Multicast Schemes
Current multicast schemes [1,3,4,6,8] were designed to handle very
large multicast groups. These work well if one is trying to
distribute broadcast-like channels all around the world but they
have scalability problems when there is a very large number of
groups.
In some of these schemes, the nodes in the network build a
multicast distribution tree for each <source, multicast group>
pair and they disseminate this multicast routing information to
places where it isn't necessarily needed, which leads to scaling
problems if there are a large number of multicast groups.
Some other schemes try to limit the amount of multicast routing
information that needs to be disseminated, processed and stored
throughout the network. These schemes use a "shared distribution
tree" that is shared by all the members of a multicast group and
they try to limit the distribution of multicast routing
information to just those nodes that "really need it". But these
schemes also have problems. Because of the shared tree, they use
less than optimal paths in routing packets to their destinations
and they tend to concentrate traffic in small portions of a
network. They also require that all of the routers in a multicast
tree "signal", process and store multicast routing information.
And they require that multicast routing information for the
various multicast groups be communicated across inter-AS
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administrative boundaries. These requirements cause scalability
problems and increase administrative complexity if there are a
large number of multicast groups.
2. Small Group Multicast (SGM)
2.1. Overview
The "Small Group Multicast" (SGM) scheme described here attempts
to eliminate these problems for the case of small groups. In SGM,
the source node keeps track of the destinations that it wants to
send packets to, and creates packet headers that contain the list
of destination addresses. SGM-capable routers receive these
packets, parse the SGM headers and use the ordinary unicast route
table to determine how to route the packet to each destination.
This eliminates the need for network routers to store any state
for the various multicast groups. This makes SGM very scaleable in
terms of the number of groups that can be supported since the
nodes in the network do not need to disseminate or store any
multicast routing information for these groups. And since it
doesn't use any multicast routing protocol, there are no inter-AS
multicast routing "peering" issues to contend with. SGM has the
additional benefit that packets always take the "right" path as
determined by the ordinary unicast route protocols. Unlike the
shared tree schemes, SGM minimizes network latency and maximizes
network "efficiency". This removes some important obstacles that
have, to this point, prevented the widespread acceptance and
adoption of multicast. Thus, SGM makes multicast practical for
very large numbers of small groups, which as suggested above is a
very important case. Note that while SGM is not suitable for large
multicast groups, such as the broadcast of an IETF meeting, it
does provide an important complement to existing multicast schemes
in that it can support very large numbers of small groups.
SGM takes advantage of one of the fundamental tenets of the
Internet "philosophy", namely that one should move complexity to
the edges of the network and keep the middle of the network
simple. This is the principle that guided the design of IP and TCP
and it's the principle that has made the incredible growth of the
Internet possible. For example, one reason that the Internet has
been able to scale so well is that the routers in the core of the
network deal with large CIDR blocks as opposed to individual hosts
or individual "connections". The routers in the core don't need to
keep track of the individual TCP connections that are passing
through them. Similarly, the IETF's diffserv effort is based on
the idea that the routers shouldn't have to keep track of a large
number of individual RSVP flows that might be passing through
them. It's the authors' belief that the routers in the core
shouldn't have to keep track of a large number of individual
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multicast flows either.
2.2. Mechanism
In Small Group Multicast, the source node keeps track of the
destinations that it wants to send packets to. The source encodes
the list of destinations in an SGM header that follows the L3
header, and then sends the packet to a router. Each router along
the way parses the SGM header, partitions the destinations based
on each destination's next hop, and forwards an appropriate SGM
packet to each of the next hops. Each "final" hop removes the SGM
encoding, and forwards the data as a standard unicast packet to
its destination.
For example, suppose that A is trying to get packets distributed
to B, C & D in figure 1 below:
R4 ---- B
/
/
A ----- R1 ---- R2 ---- R3 R8 ---- C
\ /
\ /
R5 ---- R6 ---- R7
\
\
R9 ---- D
Figure 1
This is accomplished as follows: A sends an SGM packet to its
default router, R1, that includes the list of destinations for the
packet. Ignoring some details, the packet that A sends to R1 might
look like this:
Level 3 header:
< dest = R1 >
< src = A >
< protocol = small group multicast > (new protocol type)
Level "3.5" header:
< dest = B C D >
< src = A >
followed by the payload that A wants delivered to B, C and D.
(Note that the SGM layer is said to be at "level 3.5" since it's
between IP and UDP in the protocol stack. SGM uses IP and is
carried within an IP datagram and it's used by UDP and carries a
UDP payload.)
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When R1 receives this packet, it needs to properly process the SGM
header. The processing that a router does on receiving one of
these small group multicast packets is as follows:
o Perform a route table lookup to determine the next hop for each
of the destinations listed in the packet.
o Partition the set of destinations based on their next hops.
o Replicate the packet so that there's one copy of the packet for
each of the next hops found in the previous steps.
o Modify the list of destinations in each of the copies so that
the list in the copy for a given next hop includes just the
destinations that ought to be routed through that next hop.
o Send the modified copies of the packet on to the next hops.
o Optimization: If there is only one destination for a particular
next hop, send the packet as a standard unicast packet to the
destination, as there is no multicast gain by formatting it as an
SGM packet.
So, in the example above, R1 will send a single packet on to R2
with a destination list of < B C D > and R2 will send a single
packet to R3 with the same destination list.
When R3 receives the packet, it will, by the algorithm above, send
one copy of the packet to destination R5 with an SGM list of < C D
>, and one ordinary unicast packet addressed to < B >. R4 will
receive a standard unicast packet and forward it on to < B >. R5
will forward the SGM packet that it receives on to R6 which will
pass it on to R7. When the packet reaches R7, R7 will transmit
ordinary unicast packets addressed to < C > and < D >
respectively. R8 and R9 will receive standard unicast packets, and
forward the packets on to < C > and < D > respectively.
It's important that the SGM packet that is sent to a given next
hop only includes destinations for which that next hop is the next
hop listed in the route table. If the list of destinations in the
packet sent to R4, for example, had also included C and D, R4
would send extra packets on to those nodes on a less than optimum
path. This could waste a lot of bandwidth if one is, for example,
multicasting a videoconference. And this could cause serious
problems when route loops occur since a multicast packet could
"spray" large numbers of packets in a number of different
directions as it travels around a loop. Since the SGM packet that
is sent to a given next hop only includes the destinations that
are supposed to be reached through that next hop, these problems
are eliminated.
Note that when routing topology changes, the routing for a
multicast flow will automatically adapt to the new topology since
the path a multicast packet takes to a given destination always
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follows the ordinary, unicast routing for that destination.
Note also that since the SGM header is added to the data portion
of the packet, if the sender wishes to avoid IP fragmentation, it
must take the size of the SGM header into account.
See Appendix A.1 for the standard SGM encoding formats.
3. Interoperability with Today's Routers
In the description above all of the routers in the network were
"SGM-capable". But the scheme can also be used in an environment
that includes routers that have no knowledge of SGM. This is
important since it allows SGM to be used without upgrading all the
routers in a network. There are two methods that can be used: the
first uses SGM "tunnels"; the second icmp unreachable messages.
3.1. SGM Tunnels
One way to deploy SGM in a network that has routers that have no
knowledge of SGM is to setup "tunnels" between SGM peers. This
enables the creation of a virtual network layered on top of an
existing network. The SGM routers exchange and maintain SGM
routing information via any standard unicast routing protocol
(e.g. RIP, OSPF, ISIS). The SGM routing table that is created is
simply a standard unicast routing table that contains the
destinations that have SGM connectivity, along with their
corresponding SGM next hops. In this way, packets may be forwarded
hop-by-hop to other SGM routers, or may be "tunneled" through non-
SGM routers in the network.
For example, suppose that A is trying to get packets distributed
to B, C & D in figure 2 below, where "S" routers are SGM-capable,
and "R" routers are not. Figure 3 shows the routing tables created
via the SGM tunnels:
R4 ---- B
/
/
A ----- S1 ---- R2 ---- S3 R8 ---- C
\ /
\ /
R5 ---- R6 ---- S7
\
\
R9 ---- D
Figure 2
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Router S1 establishes a tunnel to SGM peer S3.
Router S3 establishes a tunnel to SGM peers S1 and S7.
Router S7 establishes a tunnel to SGM peer S3.
S1 routing table: S3 routing table: S7 routing table:
Dest | NextHop Dest | NextHop Dest | NextHop
------+---------- ------+--------- ------+---------
B | S3 A | S1 A | S3
C | S3 C | S7 B | S3
D | S3 D | S7
Figure 3
The source A will send an SGM packet to its default SGM router,
S1, that includes the list of destinations for the packet. As
described in section 2.2, the packet that A sends to S1 might look
like this:
Level 3 header:
< dest = S1 >
< src = A >
< protocol = small group multicast > (new protocol type)
Level "3.5" header:
< dest = B C D >
< src = A >
followed by the payload that A wants delivered to B, C and D.
When S1 receives this packet it needs to properly process the
multicast. The processing that this router does on receiving one
of these small group multicast packets is as follows:
o Perform a route table lookup in the SGM routing table to
determine the SGM next hop for each of the destinations listed in the
packet.
o If no SGM next hop is found, replicate the packet and send a
standard unicast to the destination.
o For those destinations for which an SGM next hop is found,
partition destinations based on their next hops.
o Replicate the packet so that there's one copy of the packet for
each of the SGM next hops found in the previous steps.
o Modify the list of destinations in each of the copies so that
the list in the copy for a given next hop includes just the
destinations that ought to be routed through that next hop.
o Send the modified copies of the packet on to the next hops.
o Optimization: If there is only one destination for a particular
SGM next hop, send the packet as a standard unicast packet to the
destination, as there is no multicast gain by formatting it as an
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SGM packet.
So, in the example above, S1 will send a single packet on to S3
with a destination list of < B C D >. This packet will be received
by R2 as a unicast packet with destination S3, and R2 will forward
it on, having no knowledge of SGM. When S3 receives the packet, it
will, by the algorithm above, send one copy of the packet to
destination < B > as an ordinary unicast packet, and 1 copy of the
packet to S7 with a destination list of < C D >. R4, R5, and R6
will behave as standard routers with no knowledge of SGM. When S7
receives the packet, it will parse the packet and transmit
ordinary unicast packets addressed to < C > and < D >
respectively.
By using tunnels, packets follow the "best possible" path to the
various destinations (as determined by the unicast routing
protocols), while at the same minimizing the total number of
packets that must be transmitted on the network.
3.2. ICMP
The second method for gradual deployment of SGM is based on the
use of ICMP. In this case, forwarding follows as described in
figure 1 (see section 2.2). However, an assumption is made that
any router receiving an SGM packet that does not understand this
new protocol will send an icmp message back to the source. This is
a router requirement as specified in RFC1812, "Requirements for IP
Version 4 Routers" [12]. Section 5.2.7.1 of RFC1812 says that a
router should send an ICMP Destination Unreachable message with a
code of 2, signifying Protocol Unreachable, if the transport
protocol designated in a datagram is not supported in the
transport layer of the final destination.
Thus, a router that doesn't understand this new protocol should
send an icmp "destination unreachable, protocol unreachable"
message back to the source. (If the icmp message is lost for some
reason, a subsequent small group multicast packet will cause
another icmp to be sent.) This enables the source to know when a
router doesn't understand the new protocol. Furthermore, since the
icmp message will include the initial part of the original packet,
the source will also know the destinations that are not reachable
via SGM, so the source can use unicast packets to reach those
destinations. When routing topology changes, additional icmp
"destination unreachable, protocol unreachable" messages may be
generated and the source may use unicasts for additional
destinations. The source can also periodically send an SGM packet
to the destinations that are on its "unicast list" i.e. the list
of nodes that it is reaching via unicast. Destinations that become
reachable via SGM (i.e. those do not appear in subsequent icmp
"destination unreachable, protocol unreachable" messages) can then
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be removed from the unicast list. (Note that another possibility
would be to send an SGM "ping" periodically to the set of
destinations and then use unicast to reach those destinations that
don't respond to the ping).
Thus, Small Group Multicast can perform some multicasting in an
environment that includes "legacy" routers which do not understand
SGM. It won't work particularly well if there are many routers
that don't understand SGM but this backwards compatibility may be
important since it makes some of the benefits of multicast
possible before all the routers in a network have been upgraded.
This can be very useful since it may take some time to upgrade all
the routers in a large network.
See Appendix A.2 for the packet encoding which facilitates the use
of icmp.
4. Host Considerations
4.1. Control Plane
Unlike today's multicast schemes, SGM has no "control plane".
There is no IGMP, and as mentioned above, there are no intradomain
or interdomain multicast routing protocols or source discovery
protocols. With SGM, the means by which multicast groups are
defined is an application level issue and applications are not
confined to the model in which hosts use IGMP to join a multicast
group.
This allows applications such as voice and multimedia conferencing
to be programmed in a very natural way, i.e. the user can place
the call to the parties he or she wants to talk to as he or she
would using the conferencing buttons on his or her telephone. The
application developer is not limited to the receiver-initiated
joins of the IGMP model.
Although there is no SGM "control plane", several control planes
have been defined for the establishment of voice and multimedia
conferences over IP networks, including SIP[13] and H.323[14].
These protocols use two mechanisms in establishing sessions among
multiple participants: multicast using today's IP multicast
schemes and "multi-unicasting". In "multi-unicasting", the
application keeps track of the participants' unicast addresses and
sends a unicast to each of those addresses. For reasons described
in the introductory section of this paper, multi-unicasting rather
than multicast is the prevalent solution in use today.
It's a simple matter to replace multi-unicast code with SGM
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multicast. All that the developer has to do is replace a loop that
sends a unicast to each of the participants by a single "sgm_send"
that sends the data to the participants. Thus it's a simple matter
to incorporate SGM into real conferencing applications.
It's also worth mentioning that although SGM doesn't depend on a
receiver-initiated join, the receiver-initiated join model can be
implemented, if desired, by introducing a server that hosts can
talk to join a conference.
4.2. SGM API
As mentioned earlier, each of the final destinations of an SGM
packet receives an ordinary UDP packet. This means that hosts can
receive an SGM multicast with a standard, unmodified TCP/IP stack.
Hosts can also transmit SGM packets with a standard TCP/IP stack
with a small SGM library that sends SGM packets on a raw socket.
This has been used to implement SGM based applications on both
Unix and Windows platforms without any kernel changes.
Another possibility is to modify the sockets interface slightly.
For example, one might add an "sgm_sendto" function that works
like sendto but that uses a list of destination addresses in place
of the single address that sendto uses.
5. Summary
In summary, the disadvantages of Small Group Multicast are:
o the extra bytes that are sent in a multicast packet for the list
of destinations.
o the need to use unicast packets in some cases to reach
destinations that are behind "legacy" routers.
o the need for a new IP stack in hosts (unless raw sockets are
available in which case SGM packets can be sent over a raw socket).
o the fact that SGM is not suitable for huge broadcast-like
multicasts. It's targeted for "small" conferences.
The key advantages are:
o it's very scaleable; it can handle a very large number of small
groups.
o the work involved is limited to just the nodes that are on the
multicast tree.
o no per flow state information is stored on the routers.
o no multicast route protocol messages are communicated or
processed; no intra-AS or inter-AS route protocols.
o minimum administrative complexity; no need for complicated inter-
AS peering agreements; it's just as easy for a network administrator
to support multicast as it is to support unicast, and it will be just
as easy to support multicast across the Internet as it is to support
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unicast.
o traffic follows the correct paths; traffic is not concentrated
in a small part of the network; minimum network latency; maximum
network "efficiency".
o no need for class D addresses which means:
- no need for a server that hands out class D addresses which can
be a bottleneck or a point of failure.
- no one can join the class D group and "eavesdrop" on the class D
address; the source knows who he's sending to.
o SGM can be easily adapted to provide a "reliable multicast".
The advantages of Small Group Multicast suggest that this scheme
can be a very useful complement to the existing multicast schemes.
Whereas the existing schemes can support a limited number of very
large multicast groups, SGM can support a huge number (i.e.
virtually an unlimited number) of small multicast groups and thus
can play an important role in supporting applications such as
conferencing applications on the Internet.
6. Security Considerations
An "eavesdropper" cannot join a multicast "group", as the source
controls the membership of the multicast transmissions. Also,
there is no need for a server to hand out class D addresses which
could be subject to "denial of service" or other forms of attack.
Further security considerations will be addressed in a future
document.
7. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Brian Carpenter for his feedback
and ideas on the "Small Group Multicast" scheme. The authors would
also like to thank Orit Levin, of RADVision, for her thoughts and
for providing an application developer's perspective. We also
thank Joe Mambretti and Ralph Demuth of iCAIR, as well as Micah
Beck and Bert Dempsey, co-leads of the Internet2 Distributed
Storage Infrastructure Initiative, for their support in deploying
SGM in the Internet2 environment.
8. References
[1] RFC 1075, Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol, D.
Waitzman, C. Partridge, S.E. Deering, Nov. 1988
[2] S.E. Deering. Multicast Routing in a Datagram Internetwork.
PhD thesis, Electrical Engineering Dept., Stanford University,
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Dec. 1991
[3] RFC 1584, Multicast Extensions to OSPF, J. Moy, March 1994
[4] S. Deering, D. Estrin, D. Farinacci, V. Jacobson, C. Liu, and
L. Wei. The Pim Architecture for Wide-area Multicast Routing, ACM
Transactions on Networks, April 1996
[5] RFC 2189, Core Based Trees (CBT version 2) Multicast Routing
Protocol Specification, A. Ballardie, Sept., 1997
[6] RFC 2201, Core Based Trees (CBT) Multicast Routing
Architecture, A. Ballardie, Sept. 1997
[7] RFC 2236, Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 2, W.
Fenner, Nov. 1997
[8] RFC 2362, Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM):
Protocol Specification, D. Estrin et al, June 1998
[9] D. Estrin, D. Farinacci, V. Jacobson, C. Liu, L. Wei, P.
Sharma, and A. Helmy, "Protocol Independent Multicast-dense Mode
(pim-dm): Protocol Specification", Work in Progress.
[10] Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the Multicast Backbone
(MBONE), ftp://venera.isi.edu/mbone/faq.txt
[11] Reliable Multicast Transport Working Group web site,
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/rmt-charter.html, June 15, 1999
[12] RFC 1812, Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers, F. Baker,
June 1995
[13] RFC 2543, SIP: Session Initiation Protocol, M. Handley et al,
March 1999
[14] ITU-T Recommendation H.323 (2000), Packet-Based Multimedia
Communications Systems
9. Authors
Rick Boivie
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
30 Saw Mill River Rd.
Hawthorne, NY 10532
Phone: 914-784-3251
Email: rhboivie@us.ibm.com
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Nancy Feldman
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
30 Saw Mill River Rd.
Hawthorne, NY 10532
Phone: 914-784-3254
Email: nkf@us.ibm.com
A. Appendix
This appendix describes the packet formats for SGM when layered on
top of IP.
SGM packets are assigned IP protocol type:
IPPROTO_SGM 0xTBD
A.1. Standard SGM Encoding
The standard SGM header contains a fixed size header, followed by
one or more lists of the SGM destination address(es), followed by
the list of the SGM destination port(s). Note that an SGM
destination is defined to be an address/port pair.
A.1.1 Standard Fixed Header
The standard fixed header encoding is as follows:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|S| Version | Protocol | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Address Family | SourceAddress
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
S-bit (header style)
One-bit indication of the SGM style header in use. 0 indicates
the presence of the standard SGM header, 1 indicates the
presence of the bitmap SGM header. See section A.2.
Version
Seven-bit field indicating the format of the SGM header. This
document describes version 1.
Protocol
A one octet field containing the protocol of the receiving port
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for all SGM destinations. In this version of SGM, this value
must be IPPROTO_UDP.
Checksum
A checksum on the SGM header. This is verified and recomputed
at each point that the SGM header is processed. The checksum
field is the 16 bit one's complement of the one's complement
sum of all the bytes in the header. For purposes of computing
the checksum, the value of the checksum field is zero.
Address family
Two octet field containing the identity of the Network Layer
protocol associated with the Source Address that follows [see
rfc 1700].
Source Address
Address of the originator of the SGM packet. The address size
is four bytes for IPv4 and sixteen bytes for IPv6.
A.1.2 Destination Address List
The list of destination address(es) for each Address Family. The
encoding is as follows:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DestCnt | Address Family |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DestAddress(es) ...
~
|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
DestCnt
One octet field containing the total number of DestAddress(es)
for the following Address family.
Address family
Two octet field containing the identity of the Network Layer
protocol associated with the DestAddress(es) that follow [see
rfc 1700].
DestAddress(es)
List of destination address(es). Each address size is four
bytes for IPv4 and sixteen bytes for IPv6.
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A.1.3 Destination Port List
The list of destination port numbers, corresponding to each
destination address in the SGM header. In this version of SGM,
only UDP ports are supported. The encoding is as follows:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| PortNum | ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
~
|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
PortNum(s)
List of two octet destination port number(s), where each port
corresponds in placement to the preceding DestAddress(es). In
this version of SGM, the destination port must be a UDP port.
A.2. ICMP SGM Encoding
Only the first 64-bits of the originating header are returned in
an icmp packet. For this reason, the encoding requirement of the
SGM packet is more complicated than the standard header, as the
information that is returned to the originator must clearly
indicate which destinations are not reachable via SGM. In this
case, the SGM header contains a bitmap with one bit corresponding
to each of the destinations, where a value of 1 indicates that the
packet should be sent to the corresponding destination. Each SGM
router that forwards the SGM packet to a next hop router clears
those bits for which that next hop is not on the path for the
corresponding destinations. When a router doesn't understand SGM,
it will return an icmp message to the originator of the packet,
and the returned bitmap in the icmp message indicates the
destinations that could not be reached via SGM. Note that with
this type of encoding, the SGM header size does not change during
SGM forwarding.
The bitmap SGM header contains a fixed size header, followed by
one or more lists of the SGM destination address(es), followed by
the list of the SGM destination port(s). Note that an SGM
destination is defined to be an address/port pair.
A.2.1 Standard Fixed Header
The standard fixed header encoding is as follows:
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0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|S| Version | TotalDestCnt | GroupID | Bitmap
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
(variable) ... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Protocol | Checksum | Address Family
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| SourceAddress
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
S-bit (header style)
One-bit indication of the SGM style header in use. 0 indicates
the presence of the standard SGM header, 1 indicates the
presence of the bitmap SGM header. See section A.1.
Version
Seven-bit field indicating the format of the SGM header. This
document describes version 1.
TotalDestCnt
One-octet field containing the total number of SGM destinations
in the SGM header. This value MUST equal the sum of each
Address Family DestCnt value
(see sections A.1.2 and A.2.2).
GroupID
One octet field containing a unique SGM group identifier. This
is returned in an ICMP error message, and may be used to
correlate the error with the originating SGM group.
Bitmap
A variable length field of one to five octets. This field is a
bitmap which corresponds to the SGM destinations in the header,
such that the first SGM destination corresponds to the first
bit, the second destination corresponds to the second bit, and
so on. The i-th bit is set if the packet should be forwarded to
the i-th destination. The size of the field is determined by
the number of destinations, padded to an octet boundary.
This field will be returned in an ICMP error message. The
bitmap allows us to determine which destinations are not
reachable via SGM, as an ICMP error message is only guaranteed
to return the first 64-bits of the original IP datagram
payload.
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Note the limitation that only 40 destinations may be included
in packets with the ICMP encoding, as there are only five
octets available for the associated bitmap.
Protocol
A one octet value containing the protocol of the receiving port
for the following SGM destinations. In this version SGM, this
value must be IPPROTO_UDP.
Checksum
A checksum on the SGM header only. This is verified and
recomputed at each point that the SGM header is processed. The
checksum field is the 16 bit one's complement of the one's
complement sum of all the bytes in the header. For purposes of
computing the checksum, the value of the checksum field is
zero.
Address family
Two octet field containing the identity of the Network Layer
protocol associated with the Source Address that follows [see
rfc 1700].
Source Address
Address of the originator of the SGM packet. The address size
is four bytes for IPv4 and sixteen bytes for IPv6.
A.2.2 Destination Address List
The list of destination address(es) for each Address Family. The
encoding is as defined in section A.1.2.
A.2.3 Destination Port List
A list of destination port numbers, corresponding to each
destination address in the SGM header. In this version of SGM,
only UDP ports are supported. The encoding is as defined in
section A.1.3.
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