Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) is a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) family multicast routing protocol defined by Experimental RFC 3618. [1] Despite becoming the IPv4 de facto standard for inter-domain multicast, development of the protocol stopped in 2006 and it was decided by the authors not to proceed with making it a proposed standard. [2] MSDP interconnects multiple IPv4 PIM Sparse-Mode (PIM-SM) domains which enables PIM-SM to have Rendezvous Point (RP) redundancy and inter-domain multicasting RFC 4611.
MSDP uses TCP as its transport protocol. Each multicast tree needs to have its own RP. All of the RPs are peers (directly or through other MSDP peers). Messages contain the sender (source) address and the multicast group address (S,G). If an RP on its own domain receives a message, it determines if there are listeners for this group. If listeners exist, it triggers a PIM join into the source domain towards the data source. In a peering relationship, one MSDP peer listens for new TCP connections on the well-known port 639.
MSDP is deliberately unspecified for IPv6, [2] [3] for a number of reasons, including that protocols such as Source-Specific Multicast (SSM), Bi-directional Multicast and IPv6 Embedded Rendezvous Points would mean there was less requirement for MSDP.
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label such as 192.0.2.1 that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface identification, and location addressing.
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the first version of the Internet Protocol (IP) as a standalone specification. It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version deployed for production on SATNET in 1982 and on the ARPANET in January 1983. It is still used to route most Internet traffic today, even with the ongoing deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), its successor.
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IP multicast is a method of sending Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams to a group of interested receivers in a single transmission. It is the IP-specific form of multicast and is used for streaming media and other network applications. It uses specially reserved multicast address blocks in IPv4 and IPv6.
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The internet layer is a group of internetworking methods, protocols, and specifications in the Internet protocol suite that are used to transport network packets from the originating host across network boundaries; if necessary, to the destination host specified by an IP address. The internet layer derives its name from its function facilitating internetworking, which is the concept of connecting multiple networks with each other through gateways.
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Multicast routing is one of the routing protocols in IP networking.