Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP)
RFC 2730

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Network Working Group                                          S. Hanna
Requests for Comments: 2730                      Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Category: Standards Track                                      B. Patel
                                                            Intel Corp.
                                                                M. Shah
                                                        Microsoft Corp.
                                                          December 1999

     Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP)

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document defines a protocol, Multicast Address Dynamic Client
   Allocation Protocol (MADCAP), that allows hosts to request multicast
   addresses from multicast address allocation servers.

1. Introduction

   Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP) is a
   protocol that allows hosts to request multicast address allocation
   services from multicast address allocation servers. This protocol is
   part of the Multicast Address Allocation Architecture being defined
   by the IETF Multicast Address Allocation Working Group. However, it
   may be used separately from the rest of that architecture as
   appropriate.

1.1. Terminology

   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 [9].

   Constants used by this protocol are shown as [NAME-OF-CONSTANT], and
   summarized in Appendix B.

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RFC 2730                         MADCAP                    December 1999

1.2. Definitions

   This specification uses a number of terms that may not be familiar to
   the reader. This section defines some of these and refers to other
   documents for definitions of others.

   MADCAP client or client
     A host requesting multicast address allocation services via MADCAP.

   MADCAP server or server
     A host providing multicast address allocation services via MADCAP.

   Multicast
     IP Multicast, as defined in [11] and modified in [12].

   Multicast Address
     An IP multicast address or group address, as defined in [11] and
     [13].  An identifier for a group of nodes.

   Multicast Scope
     A range of multicast addresses configured so that traffic sent to
     these addresses is limited to some subset of the internetwork. See
     [3] and [13].

   Scope ID
     The lowest numbered address in a multicast scope. This definition
     applies only within this document.

   Scope Zone
     One multicast scope may have several instances, which are known as
     Scope Zones or zones, for short.

     For instance, an organization may have multiple sites. Each site
     might have its own site-local Scope Zone, each of which would be an
     instance of the site-local Scope. However, a given interface on a
     given host would only ever be in at most one instance of a given
     scope.  Messages sent by a host in a site-local Scope Zones to an
     address in the site-local Scope would be limited to the site-local
     Scope Zone containing the host.

   Zone Name
     A human readable name for a Scope Zone. An ISO 10646 character
     string with an RFC 1766 [6] language tag. One zone may have several
     zone names, each in a different language. For instance, a zone for
     use within IBM's locations in Switzerland might have the names "IBM
     Suisse", "IBM Switzerland", "IBM Schweiz", and "IBM Svizzera" with
     language tags "fr", "en", "de", and "it".

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RFC 2730                         MADCAP                    December 1999

   Multicast Scope List
     A list of multicast scope zones.

     Since it can be difficult to determine which multicast scope zones
     are in effect, MADCAP clients can ask MADCAP servers to supply a
     Multicast Scope List listing all of the zones available to the
     client. For each scope zone, the list includes the range of
     multicast addresses for this scope, a maximum TTL or hop count to
     be used for this scope, and one or more zone names for this scope
     zone.

     This definition applies only within this document.

1.3. Motivation and Protocol Requirements

   For multicast applications to be deployed everywhere, there is a need
   to define a protocol that any host may use to allocate multicast