INTERNET-DRAFT Source-Specific Multicast H. Holbrook
Expires January 14, 2001 Cisco Systems
B. Cain
Mirror Image Internet
14 July 2000
Source-Specific Multicast for IP
<draft-holbrook-ssm-arch-00.txt>
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.
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 [RFC 2119].
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Abstract
IP addresses in the 232/8 (232.0.0.0 to 232.255.255.255) range are
designated as source-specific multicast (SSM) destination addresses and
are reserved for use by source-specific applications and protocols
[IANA-ALLOCATION]. This document defines the semantics of source-
specific multicast addresses and specifies the policies governing their
use. It defines an extension to the Internet network service that
applies to datagrams sent to SSM addresses and defines the host and
router requirements to support this service.
A companion document, [IGMPSSM], describes how the Internet Group
Management Protocol Version 3 (IGMPv3) [IGMPv3] can be adapted to
support source-specific multicast.
1. Overview and Rationale
The Internet Protocol (IP) multicast service model is defined in RFC
1112 [RFC1112]. RFC 1112 specifies that a datagram sent to an IP class
D address (224.0.0.0 through 239.255.255.255) G is delivered to each
"upper-layer protocol module" that has requested reception of datagrams
sent to address G. RFC 1112 calls the network service identified by a
multicast destination address G a "host group." This model supports
both one-to-many and many-to-many group communication. This document
uses the term "Any-Source Multicast" (ASM) to refer to the RFC 1112
model of multicast.
IP addresses in the 232/8 (232.0.0.0 to 232.255.255.255) range are
designated as source-specific multicast (SSM) destination addresses and
are reserved for use by source-specific applications and protocols.
Source-Specific Multicast delivery semantics are provided for a datagram
sent to an SSM address. That is, a datagram with source IP address S
and SSM destination address G is delivered (only) to each upper-layer
"socket" that has specifically requested the reception of datagrams sent
to address G by source S. The network service identified by (S,G), for
SSM address G and source host address S, is referred to as a "channel."
In contrast to the ASM model of RFC 1112, SSM provides network-layer
support for one-to-many delivery only.
The benefits of source-specific multicast include:
Elimination of cross-delivery of traffic when two sources
simultaneously use the same source-specific destination address.
The simultaneous use of an SSM destination address by multiple
sources is explicitly supported.
Avoidance of the need for inter-host coordination when choosing
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source-specific addresses, as a consequence of the above.
Avoidance of many of the router protocols and algorithms that are
needed to provide the ASM service model. For instance, the "shared
trees" and Rendezvous Points of the PIM-SM protocol are not
necessary to support the source-specific address range. The router
mechanisms required to support SSM are not new, and are in fact
largely a subset of those required to support ASM. For example, a
network that uses the PIM-SM protocol can readily provide for
source-specific multicast by using PIM's shortest-path trees.
Like ASM, SSM is receiver-driven, and the receivers are unknown to the
sender. An SSM source is provided with neither the identity of receivers
nor their number.
This document defines the semantics of source-specific multicast
addresses and specifies the policies governing their use. In
particular, it defines an extension to the Internet network service that
applies to datagrams sent to SSM addresses and defines host extensions
to support the network service. Hosts, routers, applications, and
protocols that use these addresses MUST comply with the policies
outlined in this document. Failure of hosts to comply may prevent a
host from receiving traffic sent to an SSM channel, and failure of a
router to comply may result in SSM traffic being delivered to parts of
the network where it is unwanted, placing an undue burden on the network
infrastructure.
[IGMPSSM] describes changes to the Internet Group Management Protocol
Version 3 (IGMPv3) [IGMPv3] to support source-specific multicast.
2. Semantics of Source-Specific Multicast Addresses
The source-specific multicast service is defined as follows:
A datagram sent with source IP address S and destination IP address
G in the SSM range is delivered to each host socket that has
specifically requested delivery of datagrams sent by S to G, and
only to those sockets.
Where, using the terminology of [IGMPv3]:
"socket" is an implementation-specific parameter used to distinguish
among different requesting entities (e.g., programs or processes or
communication end-points within a program or process) within the
requesting host; the socket parameter of BSD Unix system calls is a
specific example.
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Any host may send a datagram to any SSM address, and delivery is
provided according to the above semantics.
The IP module interface to upper-layer protocols is extended to allow a
socket to "Subscribe" to or "Unsubscribe" from a particular channel
identified by an SSM destination address and a source IP address. The
extended interface is defined in section 4.1. It is meaningless for an
application or host to request reception of datagrams sent to an SSM
destination address G, as is supported in "classic" IP Multicast (Any-
Source Multicast), without also specifying a corresponding source
address, and routers MUST ignore any such request from a host, pursuant
to [IGMPSSM].
Multiple source applications on different hosts can use the same SSM
destination address G without conflict because datagrams sent by each
source host Si are delivered only to those sockets that requested
delivery of datagrams sent to G specifically by Si.
The key distinguishing property of the model is that a channel is
identified (addressed) by the combination of a (unicast) source address
and a multicast destination address in the SSM range. So, for example
the channel
S,G = (36.18.0.1, 232.7.8.9)
differs from
S,G = (36.18.0.2, 232.7.8.9).
3. Terminology
To avoid confusion between Internet Standard Multicast and Source-
Specific Multicast, we use different terminology when discussing the two
service models.
We use the term "channel" to refer to the service associated with an SSM
address. A channel is identified by the combination of an SSM
destination address and a specific source, e.g., an (S,G) pair.
We use the term "host group" (used in RFC 1112) to refer to the service
associated with "regular" class D addresses (excluding those in the SSM
range). A host group is identified by a single class D address.
Any host can send to a host group, and similarly, any host can send to
an SSM destination address. A packet sent by a host S to an ASM
destination address G is delivered to the host group identified by G. A
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packet sent by host S to an SSM destination address G is delivered to
the channel identified by (S,G). The receiver operations allowed on a
host group are called "join(G)" and "leave(G)" (as per RFC 1112). The
receiver operations allowed on a channel are called "Subscribe(S,G)" and
"Unsubscribe(S,G)."
The following table summarizes the terminology:
Service Model: Any-Source Source-Specific
Network Abstraction: group channel
Identifier: G S,G
Receiver Operations: join, leave subscribe, unsubscribe
We note that, although this document specifies a new service model
available to applications, the protocols and techniques necessary to
support the service model are largely a subset of those used to support
ASM.
4. Host Requirements
This section describes requirements on hosts that support Source-
Specific Multicast, including:
- Extensions to the IP Module Interface
- Extensions to the IP Module
- Allocation of SSM Addresses
4.1. Extensions to the IP Module Interface
The IP module interface to upper-layer protocols is extended to allow
protocols to request reception of all datagrams sent to a particular
channel.
Subscribe ( socket, source-address, group-address, interface )
Unsubscribe ( socket, source-address, group-address, interface )
where
"socket" is as previously defined,
and, paraphrasing [IGMPv3],
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"interface" is a local identifier of the network interface on which
reception of the channel identified by the (source-address,group-
address) pair is to be enabled or disabled. A special value may be
used to indicate a "default" interface, as per [IGMPv3]. If
reception of the same channel is desired on multiple interfaces,
Subscribe is invoked once for each.
The above are abstract functional APIs -- the functionality can be
provided in an implementation-specific way. On a host that supports a
full IGMPv3 API, the Subscribe and Unsubscribe MAY be provided via those
APIs, for instance using [MSFAPI].
Widespread implementations of the IP packet reception interface (e.g.,
the recvfrom() system call in BSD unix) do not allow a receiver to
determine the destination address to which a datagram was sent. On a
host with such an IP implemntation the destination address of a datagram
cannot be inferred when the socket on which the datagram is received is
Subscribed to multiple channels. Host operating systems SHOULD provide
a way for a host to determine both the source and the destination
address to which a datagram was sent. (As one example, the Linux
operating system provides the destination of a packet as part of the
response to the recvmsg() system call.) Until this capability is
present, applications are forced to use higher-layer mechanisms to
identify the channel to which a datagram was sent.
4.2. Requirements on the Host IP Module
An incoming datagram destined to an SSM address MUST be delivered by the
IP module to all sockets that have indicated (via Subscribe) a desire to
receive data that matches the datagram's source address, destination
address, and arriving interface. It MUST NOT be delivered to other
sockets.
When the first socket on host H subscribes to a channel (S,G) on
interface I, the host IP module on H sends a request on interface I to
indicate to neighboring routers that the host wishes to receive traffic
sent by source S to source-specific destination G. Similarly, when the
last socket on a host unsubscribes from a channel on interface I, the
host IP module sends an unsubscription request for that channel out
interface I.
These requests will typically be IGMPv3 messages, and the exact rules
for sending source-specific subscription and unsubscription requests and
the algorithms used to maintain subscriptions are defined in [IGMPSSM].
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4.3. Allocation of Source-Specific Multicast Addresses
The SSM destination address 232.0.0.0 is reserved, and hosts MUST NOT
send datagrams with destination address of 232.0.0.0. The address range
232.0.0.1-232.0.0.255 is reserved for allocation by IANA.
The policy for allocating the rest of the SSM addresses to sending
applications is strictly locally determined at the sender's host.
When allocating addresses from the locally allocated range (232.0.1.0 -
232.255.255.255), a host or host operating system MUST NOT start at the
first allowed address, 232.0.1.0, and allocate addresses sequentially.
As described in Section 6, the mapping of an IP packet with SSM
destination address onto a link-layer multicast address does not take
into account the datagram's source IP address (on commonly-used link
layers like Ethernet). If all hosts started at 232.0.1.0, then with
high probability, many source-specific channels on shared-medium local
area networks would collide on the same link-layer multicast address.
As a result, traffic destined for one channel member would burden
another as the link-layer (unaware of the IP Source Address) accepts the
multicast datagram, passes it to the IP layer, which then simply rejects
it.
A RECOMMENDED allocation policy is for a host to allocate SSM addresses
to applications randomly, while ensuring that allocated addresses are
not given simultaneously to multiple applications and while avoiding the
reserved space.
A host operating system SHOULD provide an interface to allow an
application to request a unique allocation of a channel destination
address in advance of a session's commencement, and this allocation
database SHOULD persist across host reboots. By providing persistent
allocations, a host application can advertise the session in advance of
its start time on a web page or in another directory. (We note that
this issue is not specific to SSM applications -- the same problem
arises when ASM is used.)
This document neither defines the interfaces for requesting or returning
addresses nor specifies the host algorithms for storing those
allocations. One plausible abstract API is defined in RFC 2771
[RFC2771], although the interface of RFC 2771 would allow an application
to request an address from a specific sub-range of the SSM allocation,
which is NOT RECOMMENDED for SSM, unless the start address of the
allowed range is selected at random. Randomization is important to
minimize link-layer collisions.
No globally agreed-upon administratively-scoped address range [ADMIN-
SCOPE] is needed for the source-specific multicast range because there
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is no possibility of address conflict between hosts in different
administrative domains (or between two hosts of any kind).
Administrative scoping of SSM addresses MAY be implemented within an
administrative domain by filtering at domain boundary routers.
5. Router Requirements
5.1. Packet Forwarding
A router that receives an IP datagram with a source-specific destination
address MUST silently drop it unless a neighboring host or router has
communicated a desire to receive packets sent to the source and
destination address of the received packet.
5.2. Protocols
Certain IP multicast routing protocols already have the ability to
communicate source-specific joins to neighboring routers (in particular,
PIM-SM), and these protocols can, with slight modifications, be used to
provide source-specific semantics. Companion documents will specify the
required modifications to those protocols to support the source-
specific address range.
A network can concurrently support SSM semantics in the SSM address
range and Any-Source Multicast in the rest of the class D address space,
and it is expected that this will be commonplace. In such a network, a
router may receive a non-source-specific, or "(*,G)" in conventional
terminology, request for delivery of traffic in the SSM range from a
neighbor that does not implement source-specific multicast in a manner
compliant with this document. A router that receives such a non-source-
specific request for data in the SSM range MUST NOT use the request to
establish forwarding state and MUST NOT propagate the request to other
neighboring routers. This applies both to any request received from a
host, e.g., an IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 host report, and to any request received
from a routing protocol, e.g., a PIM-SM (*,G) join [PIM-SM]. The inter-
router case is further discussed in section 8, Transition
Considerations.
It is essential that all routers in the network give source-specific
semantics to the same range of addresses in order to achieve the full
benefit of SSM. To comply with this specification, a router MUST treat
ALL 232/8 addresses with source-specific semantics.
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6. Link-Layer Transmission of Datagrams
Source-specific multicast packets are transmitted on link-layer networks
as specified in RFC 1112. On most shared-medium link-layer networks
that support multicast (e.g., Ethernet), the IP source address is not
used in the selection of the link-layer destination address.
Consequently, on such a network, all packets sent to destination address
G will be delivered to any host that has subscribed to any channel
(S,G), regardless of S. And therefore, the IP module MUST filter
packets it receives from the link layer before delivering them to the
socket layer. A socket on which an (S,G) subscription has been
requested MUST receive packets whose source and destination address
match the requested subscription(s) for that socket.
7. Security Considerations
7.1. Denial-of-Service
A subscription request creates (S,G) state in a router to record the
subscription and invokes processing on that router and possibly causes
processing at neighboring routers. A host can mount a denial of service
attack by requesting a large number of subscriptions. A denial of
service can result if:
- a large amount of traffic arrives when it was otherwise undesired,
consuming network resources to deliver it and host resources to drop
it
- a large amount of (invalid) source-specific multicast state is
created in network routers, using router memory and CPU resources to
store and process the state
- a large amount of control traffic is generated to manage the
source-specific state, using router CPU and network bandwidth
To reduce the potential for damage from such an attack, a router MAY
have a configuration option to limit the following items:
- The total rate at which all hosts on any one interface are allowed
to initiate subscriptions (to limit the damage caused by forged
source-address attacks)
- The total number of subscriptions that can be initated from any
single interface.
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Any decision by an implementor to artificially limit the rate or number
of subscriptions should be taken carefully, however, as future
applications may be developed that can use large numbers of channels.
Placing tight limits on the rate or number of channel subscriptions may
inhibit the development and deployment of such applications.
A router SHOULD verify that the source of a subscription request is a
valid address for the interface on which it was received. Failure to do
so would exacerbate a spoofed-source address attack.
We note that these attacks are not unique to SSM -- they are also
present for Any-Source Multicast.
7.2. Spoofed Source Addresses
By forging the source address in a datagram, an attacker can potentially
transmit datagrams on a channel that belongs to another host, violating
the SSM service model. Thus, applications that require strong
authentication should not assume that all packets that arrive on a
channel were sent by the requested source. Higher-layer authentication
mechanisms should be used in such an application.
Some degree of protection against spoofed source addresses in multicast
is already fairly widespread, because the commonly deployed IP multicast
routing protocols [PIM-DM, PIM-SM, DVMRP] incorporate a "reverse-path
forwarding check" that validates that a multicast packet arrived on the
expected interface for its source address. It is anticipated that the
routing protocols used for SSM will also incorporate such a check.
8. Transition Considerations
A host that uses the SSM address range in a fashion compliant with this
document will send ONLY source-specific host reports for addresses in
the SSM range. However, during a transition period, non-compliant hosts
might send non-source-specific (IGMPv1 or IGMPv2) host reports for
source-specific destination addresses, and routers SHOULD ignore these
reports (as stated in [IGMPSSM]). Failure to do so would violate the
SSM service model promised to the sender: that a packet sent to (S,G)
would only be delivered to hosts that specifically requested delivery of
packets sent to G by S.
During a transition period, it may be possible to deliver SSM datagrams
through domains that are not SSM compliant by simply forwarding any
packet destined to G to all hosts that have requested subscription of
(S,G) for any S. However, this implementation risks placing an undue
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burden on the network infrastructure to deliver (S,G) datagrams to hosts
that did not request them. Such an implementation for addresses in the
SSM range is specifically not compliant with Section 5.2 of this
document.
9. IANA Considerations
IANA has characterized addresses in the 232/8 address range as source-
specific multicast addresses [IANA-ALLOCATION]. No address transition
plan is required by IANA.
Following the policies outlined in [IANA-CONSIDERATIONS], addresses in
the range 232.0.0.1 through 232.0.0.255 are reserved for allocation to
well-known and widely-applicable source-specific multicast applications
and services, under a policy of IETF Expert Review with Specification
Required.
The addresses in this range are reserved for services with wide
applicability that either require or would strongly benefit if all hosts
used a well-known SSM destination address for the application. When
considering an allocation in the 232.0.0.1-232.0.0.255 range, it should
be considered that, on an Ethernet network, any datagram sent to a well-
known SSM destination address will be transmitted to the same link-layer
destination address, regardless of its IP source address. Therefore,
the link-layer impact of allocating a well-known SSM address should be
considered carefully. Furthermore, the fact that channels with
destinations in 232.0.0/24 use the same link-layer addresses as the
reserved IP multicast group range 224.0.0/24 must also be taken under
consideration.
Except for the aforementioned addresses, IANA SHALL NOT allocate
destination addresses in this range to particular entities or for use by
particular applications. To do so would compromise one of the important
benefits of the source-specific model: the ability for a host to
autonomously allocate source-specific addresses without consulting a
remote authority.
10. Acknowledgments
The SSM service model draws on previous work done on the EXPRESS
Multicast model [EXPRESS] with David Cheriton. We would like to thank
David Cheriton and Jon Postel for their support in reassigning the 232/8
address range to SSM.
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11. References
[IANA-ALLOCATION] Internet Assigned Numbers Authority,
http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/multicast-addresses.
[IGMPv3] Cain, B., Deering, S., and A. Thyagarajan, "Internet Group
Management Protocol, Version 3," Work in Progress.
[RFC1112] Deering, S., "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting," RFC 1112,
August 1989.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels," RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2771] Finlayson, R., "An Abstract API for Multicast Address
Allocation," RFC 2771, February 2000.
[IGMPv2] Fenner, W., "Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 2,"
RFC 2236, November 1997.
[IANA-CONSIDERATIONS] Narten, T., and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs," RFC 2434, October 1998.
[PIM-DM] Deering, S., Estrin, D., Farinacci, D., Jacobson, V., Helmy,
A., Meyer, D., and L. Wei, "Protocol Independent Multicast Version 2
Dense Mode Specification," Work in Progress.
[PIM-SM] Estrin, D., Farinacci, D., Helmy, A., Thaler, D., Deering, S.,
Handley, M., Jacobson, V., Liu, C., Sharma, P. and L. Wei, "Protocol
Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM): Protocol Specification," RFC
2362, June 1998.
[DVMRP] Waitzman, D., Partridge, C., and S. Deering., "Distance Vector
Multicast Routing Protocol," RFC 1075, Nov 1988.
[ADMIN-SCOPE] Meyer, D., "Administratively Scoped IP Multicast", BCP 23,
RFC 2365, July, 1998.
[IGMPSSM] Holbrook, H., and Cain, B. "Using IGMPv3 for Source-Specific
Multicast". Work in Progress.
[EXPRESS] Holbrook, H., and Cheriton, D. "Explicitly Requested Source-
Specific Multicast: EXPRESS support for Large-scale Single-source
Applications." Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM '99, Cambridge, MA, September
1999.
[MSFAPI] Thaler, D., Fenner, B., and Quinn, B. "Socket Interface
Extensions for Multicast Source Filters." Work in Progress.
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12. Author's Address
Brad Cain
Mirror Image Internet
bcain@mirror-image.com
Hugh Holbrook
Cisco Systems
holbrook@cisco.com
This document expires January 14, 2001.
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