1 IPv6 multicast Stig Venaas

2 Overview IPv6 multicast addresses and scopes IPv6 multicast protocols Interdomain IPv6 multicast Current deployment IPv6 multicast applications

3 IPv6 multicast addresses FlagsScopeGroup ID 8 bits4 bits 112 bits Flag bits: 0 R P T T = 0 – permanent IANA assigned address T = 1 – transient address (not IANA) P = 1 – derived from unicast prefix (RFC 3306) R = 1 – embedded-RP address (RFC 3956) Scopes: 0 Reserved 1 Interface local 2 Link local 3 Reserved 4 Admin local 5 Site local 6-7 Unassigned (admin) 8 Organization local 9-D Unassigned (admin) E Global F Reserved IPv6 multicast addresses are in the range FF00::/8 All IPv6 hosts need to support multicast Used for neighbour discovery (like IPv4 ARP) Well defined scoping architecture Risk of addressing conflicts much less than with IPv4

4 Unicast prefix based addresses FlagsScopeResrvdPlenPrefixGroup ID 8 bits4 bits 8 bits 64 bits32 bits Unicast prefix based addresses are defined in RFC 3306 Flags are set to 3 (P=T=1) Reserved must be 0 Plen is the length of the prefix used Prefix is a unicast prefix The group ID consists of any 32 bits In this way every site will have many multicast addresses unique to them One can also use /64 prefixes to get addresses unique to a link Example:  Site with unicast prefix 2001:db8:1::/48  Example multicast address ff3e:30:2001:db8:1:0:dead:beef

5 Embedded-RP addresses FlgsScpResRIIDPlenPrefixGroup ID 8 bits bits32 bits Embedded-RP addresses are defined in RFC 3956 Variation of the unicast prefix based addresses Flags are set to 7 (R=P=T=1). R is a new flag for embedded-RP Reserved must be 0 RIID contains the last 4 bits of the RP address Plen is the length of the prefix used Prefix is a unicast prefix The group ID consists of any 32 bits One may use /64 prefixes as well to have an RP per link Example:  Site with unicast prefix 2001:db8:1::/48 can pick RP address 2001:db8:1::a  Example multicast address ff7e:0a30:2001:db8:1:0:dead:beef

6 SSM addresses FlagsScopeResrvdPlenPrefixGroup ID 8 bits4 bits 8 bits 64 bits32 bits SSM addresses are special subset of unicast prefix based addresses Flags are set to 3 (P=T=1) Reserved must be 0 Plen is set to 0 Prefix is set to all zeroes The group ID consists of any 32 bits This results in ff3x::/96 for SSM (where x is any scope) Scope000Group ID 8 bits4 bits 8 bits 64 bits32 bits

7 IPv6 multicast protocols MLD is used for hosts to report to routers what they want to receive  Mostly similar to IGMP for IPv4 MLDv1 supports joining groups (ASM)  Like IGMPv2 MLDv2 supports joining groups and sources (SSM)  Like IGMPv3 All IPv6 systems (should) support MLDv1 MLDv2 supported by Linux and Windows Vista PIM-SM is the most widely used routing protocol  Just like it is for IPv4 Multiprotocol BGP used for exchanging routes for RPF  Like for IPv4 One big difference is that there is no MSDP

8 PIM-SM and Rendezvous Points Interdomain multicast routing is usually done with a protocol called PIM-SM PIM-SM requires an RP for source discovery All routers must use the same RP and somehow know its address Initially packets from a source will be sent to the RP When a host joins a group, join messages are sent hop by hop towards the RP The RP serves as a meeting place between sources and receivers This works well within a site or a single administrative domain But we don’t want one single central common RP for all multicast on the Internet So we want something that can work across administrative domains

9 IPv6, MSDP and Embedded-RP MSDP doesn’t scale with large scale deployment since source information is flooded to all the RPs Hence the IETF decided not to have MSDP for IPv6 For IPv6 there is something called Embedded-RP (RFC 3956) It defines a specific way to create multicast group addresses where the RP address is encoded into the group address  An embedded-RP address starts with ff70::/12  Flags value of 7 means embedded-RP  E.g. ff7e:140:2001:700:f000:100:1234:beac has the RP 2001:700:f000:100::1 Only a new way to map from group to RP. The main point is that it allows for a large number of RPs that can be practically anywhere in the Internet. They do not need to be preconfigured in the routers, routers automatically use the right RP Someone hosting or initiating a multicast session can pick a group address with their RP address encoded inside Everyone joining or sending to their session will then use their RP

10 IPv4 – IPv6 comparison The main philosophy behind MSDP is to avoid one single common RP in the Internet, and to avoid relying on a 3 rd party’s RP With Embedded-RP we solve both of these  Provided one of the parties in a session picks a group address specifying their own RP A technical difference is that with MSDP (and also SSM), there is only (S,G)-joins between domains With embedded-RP, an RP is shared by multiple domains, so there will also be (*,G)-joins between domains

11 What about SSM? SSM (Source-Specific Multicast) available for both IPv4 and IPv6  There are no differences here Some believe only SSM is needed for interdomain multicast SSM simplifies multicast signaling in the network  No need for RPs, PIM register, switching between shared and source- specific trees… But very difficult for multi-party applications  E.g. conferencing where everyone is a source and everyone needs to know the IP addresses of the others SSM is supported by very few applications and systems  Edge routers and hosts need to support MLDv2  Hosts need to support RFC 3678, which is the API for specifying source filters  Applications need to be changed to support this API

12 Deployment of IPv6 multicast The European IST project 6NET had a European backbone and deployed native IPv6 multicast in 2003, and came up with the idea of Embedded-RP IPv6 multicast has been deployed natively in Abilene, GEANT, NORDUnet, TEIN2, as well as in many NRNs (incl. CERNET2 and UNINETT)  These also have native IPv6 multicast peerings  Abilene has peerings with GEANT, TransPAC, and networks in Latin America  GEANT has peerings with about 10 NRNs For multicast BGP peerings, see complete.html There is also a world-wide network called M6Bone. This was started by RENATER 6 years ago  Anyone can join this to experiment with IPv6 multicast, see

13 Deployment of IPv6 multicast IPv6 multicast with a single central RP has been working in the M6Bone for 7 years. Still in use, but as we’ve discussed, it’s not a scalable solution Embedded-RP and SSM are being actively used in GEANT, Abilene and many other networks Easy to deploy, most routers need no configuration. SSM and embedded-RP works with no configuration, although at least one vendor requires you to enable embedded-RP  E.g. GEANT/Abilene routers need no RP configured RP router can be close to the edge, e.g. in a university, that need to be configured ACM Sigcomm 2007 is taking place in Kyoto this week, and they are doing IPv6 multicast streaming using embedded-RP

14 IPv6 multicast applications Mbone tools – vic/rat etc  IPv6 multicast conferencing applications  VideoLAN (vlc) –  Video streaming, also IPv6 multicast. Server and client DVTS –  Streaming DV over RTP over IPv4/IPv6 Mad flute –  Streaming of files using multicast (IPv4/IPv6 ASM/SSM) Monitoring/debugging tools  Dbeacon,  An alternative to NLANR beacon  ssmping/asmping –  ping-like tool for testing IPv6/IPv4 ssm/asm connectivity

15 ssmping A tool for testing multicast connectivity Behavior is a bit like normal ping A server must run ssmpingd A client can ping a server by sending unicast ssmping query Server replies with both unicast and multicast ssmping replies In this way a client can check that it receives SSM from the server  And also parameters like delay, number of router hops etc. Note that there is also a similar tool called asmping for checking ASM connectivity See

16 Example IPv4 ssmping output (v6 supported) -bash-3.00$ ssmping -c 5 -4 ssmping.uninett.no ssmping joined (S,G) = ( , ) pinging S from unicast from , seq=0 dist=15 time= ms unicast from , seq=1 dist=15 time= ms multicast from , seq=1 dist=9 time= ms unicast from , seq=2 dist=15 time= ms multicast from , seq=2 dist=9 time= ms unicast from , seq=3 dist=15 time= ms multicast from , seq=3 dist=9 time= ms unicast from , seq=4 dist=15 time= ms multicast from , seq=4 dist=9 time= ms ssmping statistics packets transmitted, time 5004 ms unicast: 5 packets received, 0% packet loss rtt min/avg/max/std-dev = /72.467/72.874/0.415 ms multicast: 4 packets received, 20% packet loss 0% loss since first multicast packet received (after 1077 ms) rtt min/avg/max/std-dev = /74.223/76.502/1.335 ms -bash-3.00$

17 dbeacon dbeacon is a new multicast beacon   Sources also at  Alternative to NLANR beacon  IPv4 and IPv6, ASM and SSM  Written in C, light, and easy to install  No central server, ASM used for signalling  Any beacon client can be configured to provide a matrix  Beacon options, e.g.  dbeacon –b ff7e:a30:2001:db8:10::beac –S –a  With Apache:  ScriptAlias /matrix/ /usr/share/dbeacon- matrix/matrix.pl  Edit script for path to matrix $dumpfile = '/var/lib/dbeacon/dump.xml';

18 Example dbeacon matrix

19 IPv4 - IPv6 multicast gateway In IPv4 the gateway is a multicast host using IGMP In IPv6 the gateway is a PIM router and RP for the /96 prefix

20 vic/rat session on M6Bone/6NET with gateway