Network Working Group                             Deborah  Estrin  (USC)
Internet Draft                                    Dino Farinacci (CISCO)
                                                      Van Jacobson (LBL)
                                                     Chinggung Liu (USC)
                                                        Liming Wei (USC)
                                                    Puneet Sharma  (USC)
                                                       Ahmed Helmy (USC)

draft-ietf-idmr-PIM-DM-spec-01.txt                     January 17, 1996
                                                  Expires in six months



   Protocol  Independent   Multicast-Dense   Mode   (PIM-DM):   Protocol
   Specification



   Status of This Memo

   This document is an Internet  Draft.   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.  Internet  Drafts  may  be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by
   other documents at any time.  It is not appropriate to  use  Internet
   Drafts  as  reference  material  or  to  cite  them  other  than as a
   ``working'' draft'' or ``work in progress.''

   Please check the I-D abstract  listing  contained  in  each  Internet
   Draft  directory  to  learn  the  current status of this or any other
   Internet Draft.
















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1 Introduction

   This  specification  defines  a  multicast  routing   algorithm   for
   multicast groups that are densely distributed across an internet. The
   protocol is unicast routing protocol independent. It is based on  the
   PIM sparse-mode [Deering95] and employs the same packet formats. This
   protocol is called dense-mode PIM. The design  is  based  largely  on
   foundational work by Deering [Deering91].


2 PIM-DM Protocol Overview

   Dense-mode PIM  uses  Reverse  Path  Multicasting  (RPM).  RPM  is  a
   technique in which a multicast datagram is forwarded if the receiving
   interface is one used to forward unicast datagrams to the  source  of
   the  datagram. The multicast datagram is then forwarded out all other
   interfaces. Dense-mode PIM builds source-based acyclic trees.

   Dense-mode PIM is  data  driven,  whereby  it  is  assumed  that  all
   downstream  systems  want to receive multicast datagrams. For densely
   populated groups this is optimal. If some areas of the network do not
   have  group  members,  dense-mode  PIM  will  prune  branches  of the
   source-based tree. When group members leave the group, branches  will
   also be pruned.

   Unlike DVMRP [DVMRP] packets are forwarded on all outgoing interfaces
   (except  the  incoming)  until  pruning  and truncation occurs. DVMRP
   makes use of parent-child data  to  reduce  the  number  of  outgoing
   interfaces  used  before  pruning. In both protocols, once truncation
   occurs pruning state is maintained and  packets  are  only  forwarded
   onto outgoing interfaces that in fact reach downstream members.

   We chose to accept additional overhead in favor of reduced dependency
   on  the  unicast  routing  protocol,  and  reduced  overall  protocol
   complexity.

   Dense-mode PIM differs from sparse-mode PIM in two essential  points:
   1)  there  are no periodic joins transmitted, only explicit triggered
   grafts/prunes, and 2) there is no Rendezvous Point (RP).


3 Background

   Reverse  Path  Broadcasting  (RPB)  is  different  from  RPF  because
   duplicate  packets  are  avoided  in the RPB that are sent in RPF. In
   general, the number of duplicates sent on a link can be  as  high  as
   the number of routers directly connected to that link.




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   Reverse Path Multicasting (RPM) is different from RPF or RPB  because
   pruning  information  is  propagated upstream. Leaf routers must know
   that they are leaf routers so that in response to no IGMP reports for
   a group, those leaf routers know to initiate the prune process.

   In DVMRP there are routing protocol dependencies for  a)  building  a
   parent-child database so that duplicate packets can be eliminated, b)
   eliminating duplicate packets on multi-access LANs,  and  c)  sending
   "split  horizon  with  poison  reverse"  information to detect that a
   router is not a leaf router (if a router does not receive any  poison
   reverse  messages  from other routers on a multi-access LAN then that
   router acts as a leaf router for that LAN and knows to prune if there
   are not IGMP reports on that LAN for a group G).

   Dense-mode PIM will accept some duplicate packets in order  to  avoid
   being  routing  protocol  dependent and avoid building a child parent
   database.

   We introduce a simple prune  mechanism  for  reducing  duplicates  on
   multi-access  LANs.  We  introduce a simple graft mechanism to reduce
   join  latency  on  previously  pruned  branches  of  a   source-based
   multicast tree.

   We introduce an alternative leaf-router detection mechanism that does
   not  rely  on  a  specific unicast routing protocol mechanism such as
   split horizon with poison reverse.

   These mechanisms are described below.


4 Protocol Description

4.1 Leaf network detection

   In DVMRP poison reverse information tells a router that other routers
   on  the  shared  LAN  use  the  LAN as their incoming interface. As a
   result, even if the DR for that LAN does not hear  any  IGMP  Reports
   for  a  group, the DR will know to continue to forward multicast data
   packets to that group, and  NOT  to  send  a  prune  message  to  its
   upstream neighbor.

   Since dense-mode PIM does not rely on any  unicast  routing  protocol
   mechanisms,  this  problem  is  solved  by  using prune messages sent
   upstream on a LAN. If a downstream router on a LAN determines that it
   has  no  more downstream members for a group, then it can multicast a
   prune message on the LAN.

   A leaf router detects that there are no members downstream when it is



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   the  only  router  on  a  network  and  there are no IGMP Host-Report
   messages received from  hosts.  It  determines  there  are  no  other
   routers by not receiving PIM Router-Query messages.

   When a prune message is sent on an upstream  LAN,  it  is  data  link
   multicast   and  IP  addressed  to  the  all  routers  group  address
   224.0.0.2. The router to process  the  prune  will  be  indicated  by
   inserting  its  address  in  the  "Address" field of the message. The
   address is obtained by an RPF lookup from the unicast routing  table.
   When  the  prune  message  is sent, the expected upstream router will
   schedule a deletion request of the LAN from its  outgoing  interfaces
   for  the  (S,G)  entry  from the prune list. The suggested delay time
   before deletion should be greater than 3 seconds.

   Note the special case for equal-cost paths. When an  upstream  router
   is chosen by an RPF lookup there may be equal-cost paths to reach the
   source. The higher IP addressed  system  is  always  chosen.  If  the
   unicast  routing  protocol  does  not  store all available equal-cost
   paths in the routing table,  the  "Address"  field  may  contain  the
   address  of  the  wrong upstream router. To avoid this situation, the
   "Address" field may optionally be set to 0.0.0.0 which means that all
   upstream routers (the ones that have the LAN as an outgoing interface
   for the (S,G) entry) may process the packet.


   Other routers on the LAN will hear the prune message and respond with
   a  join  if  they  still expect multicast datagrams from the expected
   upstream router. The PIM-Join message is data link multicast  and  IP
   addressed  to  the all routers group address 224.0.0.2. The router to
   process the join will be indicated by inserting its  address  in  the
   "Address"  field  of the message. The address is determined by an RPF
   lookup from the unicast  routing  table.  When  the  expected  router
   receives the join message, it will cancel the deletion request.

   Routers will randomly generate a join message delay timer. If a  join
   is  heard  from another router before a router sends its own, it will
   cancel sending its own join. This will reduce traffic on the LAN. The
   suggested join delay timer should be from 1 to 3 seconds.

   If the  expected  upstream  router  does  not  receive  any  PIM-Join
   messages  before  the schedule time for the deletion request expires,
   it deletes the  outgoing  LAN  interface  from  the  (S,G)  multicast
   forwarding entry.

   If an (S,G) entry contains an empty outgoing interface list, a  prune
   is sent upstream. Prune information is flushed periodically. This (or
   a loss of state) causes the packets to be  sent  in  RPF  mode  again
   which in turn triggers prune messages.



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4.2 New members joining an existing group

   If a router is directly connected to a host that wants  to  become  a
   member  of  a  group,  the  router  may  optionally, send a PIM-Graft
   message towards known sources. This allows join latency to be reduced
   below  that indicated by the relatively large timeout value suggested
   for prune information.

   If a receiving router has state for group G, it adds the interface on
   which  the IGMP Report or PIM-Graft was received for all known (S,G).
   If the (S,G) entry was a negative cache entry,  the  router  sends  a
   PIM-Graft message upstream towards S.

   If routers have no group state, they do nothing since dense-mode  PIM
   will  deliver  a  multicast  datagram to all interfaces when creating
   state for a group.

   Any routers  receiving  the  PIM-Graft  message,  uses  the  received
   interface  as an incoming interface for any (S,G) entry, will not add
   the interface to the outgoing interface list.

   The PIM-Graft message is the only PIM message that  uses  a  positive
   acknowledgment  strategy.  Senders of PIM-Graft messages unicast them
   to their upstream RPF neighbors. The neighbor  processes  each  (S,G)
   and  immediately  acknowledges  each (S,G) in a PIM-GraftAck message.
   This is relatively easy, since the receiver simply changes  the  IGMP
   code from Graft to Graft-Ack and unicasts the original packet back to
   the source. The sender periodically retransmits the PIM-Graft message
   for  any  (S,G)  that has not been acknowledged. Note that the sender
   need not keep a retransmission list  for  each  neighbor  since  PIM-
   Grafts  are only sent to the RPF neighbor. Only the (S,G) entry needs
   to be tagged for retransmission.


4.3 Protocol Scenario

   A multicast datagram is sent by a source host. If a receiving  router
   has  no  forwarding cache state for the source sending to group G, it
   creates  an  (S,G)  entry.  The  incoming  interface  for  (S,G)   is
   determined  by  doing an RPF lookup in the unicast routing table. The
   (S,G)  outgoing  interface  list   contains   dense-mode   configured
   interfaces that have PIM routers present or host members for group G.

   A PIM-Prune message is triggered when an (S,G) entry is built with an
   empty  outgoing  interface  list.  This  type  of  entry  is called a
   negative cache entry. This can occur when a leaf router has no  local
   members for group G or a prune message was received from a downstream
   router which causes the outgoing interface list to become NULL.  PIM-



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   Prune  messages  are  never  sent  on  LANs in response to a received
   multicast packet that is associated with a negative cache entry.

   PIM-Prune messages received on a point to point link are not  delayed
   before  processing  as they are in the LAN procedure. If the prune is
   received on an interface that is in the outgoing interface  list,  it
   is deleted immediately. Otherwise the prune is ignored.

   When a multicast datagram is received on the incorrect LAN  interface
   (i.e.  not the RPF interface) the packet is silently discarded. If it
   is received on an incorrect point-to-point interface, Prunes  may  be
   sent  in  a  rate-limited fashion. Prunes may also be rate-limited on
   point-to-point interfaces when a multicast datagram is received for a
   negative cache entry.


4.4 Designated Router election

   The dense-mode PIM designated router  (DR)  election  uses  the  same
   procedure  as  in  sparse-mode PIM. A DR is necessary for each multi-
   access LAN so a single  router  sends  IGMP  Host-Query  messages  to
   solicit host group membership.

   Each PIM router connected to a multi-access LAN should  transmit  PIM
   Router-Query  messages  every  30  seconds onto the LAN to support DR
   election. The highest addressed router becomes the DR. The discovered
   PIM  routers  should  be  timed  out after 90 seconds. If the DR goes
   down, a new DR is elected.

   DR election is only necessary on multi-access  networks.  It  is  not
   required that PIM Query messages be sent on point-to-point links.


4.5 Parallel paths to a source

   Two or more routers may receive the same multicast datagram that  was
   replicated  upstream.  In  particular, if two routers have equal cost
   paths to a source and are connected on a common multi-access network,
   duplicate  datagrams  will travel downstream onto the LAN. Dense-mode
   PIM will detect such a situation and will not let it persist.

   If a router receives a multicast datagram on a multi-access LAN  from
   a  source  whose corresponding (S,G) outgoing interface list includes
   the received interface, the packet must be a duplicate. In this  case
   a  single  forwarder  must  be  elected.  Using  PIM  Assert messages
   addressed to 224.0.0.2 on the LAN, upstream routers can decide  which
   one  becomes  the forwarder. Downstream routers listen to the Asserts
   so they know which one was elected (i.e. typically this is  the  same



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   as  the  downstream router's RPF neighbor but there are circumstances
   when using different unicast protocols where this might  not  be  the
   case).

   The upstream router elected is the one that has the shortest distance
   to  the  source.  Therefore, when a packet is received on an outgoing
   interface a router will send an Assert packet on the  LAN  indicating
   what  metric  it  uses  to  reach  the source of the data packet. The
   router with the smallest numerical metric will become the  forwarder.
   All  other  upstream  routers  will  delete  the interface from their
   outgoing  interface  list.  The  downstream  routers  also   do   the
   comparison  in case the forwarder is different than the RPF neighbor.
   This is important so downstream routers  send  subsequent  Prunes  or
   Grafts to the correct neighbor.

   Associated with the metric is a  metric  preference  value.  This  is
   provided  to  deal  with  the case where the upstream routers may run
   different unicast routing protocols. The numerically  smaller  metric
   preference  is  always  preferred.  The  metric  preference should be
   treated as the  high-order  part  of  an  Assert  metric  comparison.
   Therefore,  a  metric value can be compared with another metric value
   provided both metric preferences are the same.  A  metric  preference
   can  be  assigned  per  unicast  routing  protocol  and  needs  to be
   consistent for all routers on the LAN.

   The following Assert rules are provided:

   Multicast packet received on outgoing interface:


        1    Do unicast routing table lookup on source IP  address  from
             data packet.

        2    Send Assert on interface for source IP  address  from  data
             packet,  include  metric preference of routing protocol and
             metric from routing table lookup.


        3    If route is not found, Use metric preference of  0x7fffffff
             and metric 0xffffffff.



        Asserts received on outgoing interface:


        1    Compare metric received in Assert with the  one  you  would
             have advertised in an Assert. If the value in the Assert is



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             less than your value, prune the interface. If the value  is
             the  same,  compare  IP  addresses, if your address is less
             than the Assert sender, prune the interface.

        2    If you  have  won  the  election  and  there  are  directly
             connected  members  on  the LAN, keep the interface in your
             outgoing interface list. You are the forwarder for the LAN.

        3    If you have won the election  but  there  are  no  directly
             connected  members  on  the  LAN,  schedule  to  prune  the
             interface. The LAN might be a stub LAN with no members (and
             no   downstream   routers).  If  no  subsequent  Joins  are
             received, delete the interface from the outgoing  interface
             list.   Otherwise  keep  the  interface  in  your  outgoing
             interface. You are the forwarder for the LAN.



        Asserts received on incoming interface:


        1    Downstream routers will select the upstream router with the
             smallest  metric  as their RPF neighbor. If two metrics are
             the same, the highest IP address is  chosen  to  break  the
             tie.

        2    If the downstream routers  have  downstream  members,  they
             must  schedule a join to inform the upstream router packets
             should be  forwarded  on  the  LAN.  This  will  cause  the
             upstream  forwarder  to  cancel  its delayed pruning of the
             interface.



     4.6 Timing out multicast forwarding entries

        Each (S,G) entry has timers associated with it. During this time
        source-based tree state is kept in the network.

        There should be multiple  timers  set.  One  for  the  multicast
        routing  entry itself and one for each interface in the outgoing
        interface list. The outgoing interface stays active in the  list
        as  long as there is multicast traffic for the entry or there is
        an explicit Graft received on the interface. If  neither  occurs
        the  interface will be deleted from the list after 3 minutes, by
        default.

        Once all interfaces in  the  outgoing  interface  list  are  not



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        active,  a  timer should be set for the (S,G) entry. During this
        time the entry is known as a negative state  entry  at  which  a
        prune  is  triggered.  Once the (S,G) entry times out, it can be
        recreated when the next multicast packet or join arrives.


     4.7 Source address aggregation and Pruning

        An (S,G) entry in the multicast routing  table  will  contain  a
        source  address  to  be as specific as necessary depending where
        the router is in relation to a source. Close to the source, this
        will  typically  be a subnet number. Far from the source, it may
        be a network number or a supernet  route.  Prunes  sent  may  be
        rather  ineffective  if  the source being pruned is not specific
        enough.

        For example, initially  a  multicast  datagram  may  be  flooded
        throughout  an  Autonomous  System (AS). Within the AS, there is
        complete subnet information in the unicast routing tables of all
        routers.  Once the datagram exits the AS, it is likely there are
        routers that don't have subnet  information.  If  these  routers
        send  Prunes  for aggregate sources, routers close to the source
        will not know where to reach the source  since  they  have  more
        specific  information  than  what  was  provided  in  the  Prune
        message. This results in traffic being sent further on a  branch
        of the multicast tree than necessary.

        The problem is fixed by sending  source  host  specific  prunes.
        However, to maintain proper scaling of routing information, each
        router along the path performs longest  match  lookups  for  the
        source  specified in the Prune message. Therefore, they keep the
        level of aggregation that  best  suits  thier  position  to  the
        source in the topology.

        A  source  host  specific  Prune  is  encoded  by  copying   the
        instigating  source  IP address from the multicast datagram into
        the PIM message using a mask length of 32.














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     5 Packet Formats

        RFC-1112, see [RFC1112], specifies two types of IGMP packets for
        hosts  and  routers  to  convey  multicast  group membership and
        reachability  information.  An   IGMP   Host-Query   packet   is
        transmitted periodically by routers to ask hosts to report which
        multicast groups they are  members  of.  An  IGMP  Host-  Report
        packet  is  transmitted by hosts in response to received queries
        advertising group membership.

        This section introduces new types of IGMP packets that are  used
        by  PIM-SM  routers.  All  PIM-SM control mesages are encoded in
        IGMP messages.

        The fixed header packet format is:



     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
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |Version| Type  |      Code     |           Checksum            |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                        Address                                |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+




        Version
              This memo specifies version 1 of IGMP.

        Type  There are nine types of IGMP messages:



           1 = Host Membership Query
           2 = Host Membership Report
           3 = Router DVMRP Messages
           4 = Router PIM Messages
           5 = Cisco Trace Messages
           6 = New Host Membership Report
           7 = Host Membership Leave
           14 = Mtrace Response
           15 = Mtrace Request


        Code  Codes for specific message types. Used only by  DVMRP  and



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             PIM. PIM codes are:



           0 = Router-Query
           1 = Register
           2 = Register-Ack
           3 = Join/Prune
           4 = RP-Reachability
           5 = Assert
           6 = Graft
           7 = Graft-Ack
           8 = RP-Advertisement
           9 = Ping



        Checksum
              The checksum is the 16-bit one's complement of  the  one's
             complement  sum  of  the entire IGMP message. For computing
             the checksum, the checksum field is zeroed.

        Address
              PIM Version field when IGMP type is PIM.



          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
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         |PIM Ver|                        Reserved                       |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+




             PIM Ver
                   PIM Version number is 2.

             Reserved
                   Transmitted as zero, ignored on receipt.



        { For all the packet format details, refer to  the  PIM  sparse-
        mode specification.}





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     5.1 PIM-Query Message

        It is sent periodically by PIM routers on all interfaces.

     5.2 PIM-SM-Register Message

        Used in sparse-mode. Refer to PIM sparse-mode specification.

     5.3 PIM-SM-Register-Ack Message

        Used in sparse-mode. Refer to PIM sparse-mode specification.

     5.4 Join/Prune Message

        It is sent by routers towards upstream sources. A  join  creates
        forwarding  state  and  a prune destroys forwarding state. Joins
        are sent to build source specific  trees.  Prunes  are  sent  to
        prune  source trees when members leave groups as well as sources
        that do not use the shared tree.

     5.5 PIM-SM-RP-Reachability Message

        Used in sparse-mode. Refer to PIM sparse-mode specification.

     5.6 PIM-Assert Message

        The PIM-Assert message is sent when a multicast data  packet  is
        received  on an outgoing interface corresponding to the (S,G) or
        (*,G) associated with the source.

     5.7 PIM-Graft Message

        This message is sent by a downstream  router  to  a  neighboring
        upstream  router  to  reinstate  a previously pruned branch of a
        source tree. This is done for dense-mode groups only. The format
        is the same as a Join/Prune message.


     5.8 PIM-Graft-Ack Message

        Sent in response to a received Graft message. The  Graft-Ack  is
        only  sent  if  the interface in which the Graft was received is
        not the incoming interface for the  respective  (S,G).  This  is
        done  for  dense-mode  groups  only.  The  format is the same as
        Join/Prune message.






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     5.9 PIM-SM-PING and PING-Response Message

        Used in sparse-mode. Refer to PIM sparse-mode specification.

     5.10 RP-Advertisement

        Used in sparse-mode. Refer to PIM sparse-mode specification.

     6 References

        [Deering91]  S.E.  Deering.  Multicast  Routing  in  a  Datagram
        Internetwork. PhD thesis, Electrical Engineering Dept., Stanford
        University, December 1991.

        [DVMRP] RFC 1075, Distance Vector  Multicast  Routing  Protocol.
        Waitzman, D., Partridge, C., Deering, S.E, November 1988

        [Deering95] Protocol Independent Multicast Sparse-Mode (PIM-SM):
        Protocol  Specification. S. Deering, D. Estrin, D. Farinacci, V.
        Jacobson, G. Liu, L. Wei, P. Sharma, A. Helmy, September 1995

        [Deering94b] An Architecture for Wide-Area Multicast Routing, S.
        Deering,  D.  Estrin,  D. Farinacci, V. Jacobson, G. Liu,L. Wei,
        USC Technical Report, available from authors, Feburary 1994.

        [RFC1112] Host Extensions for IP Multicasting,  Network  Working
        Group, RFC 1112, S. Deering, August 1989


        References





















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