Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol

Waitzman, Partridge, Deering

network routing multicast

@misc{waitzman:ietf-1988,
  author={D. Waitzman and C. Partridge and S.E. Deering},
  title={Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol},
  series={Request for Comments},
  number={1075},
  howpublished={{RFC} 1075 (Experimental)},
  publisher={IETF},
  organization={Internet Engineering Task Force},
  year={1988},
  month={November},
  url={\url{http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1075.txt}}
}

Most likely the most common multicast routing protocol is the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP)~\cite{waitzman:ietf-1988,kurose:networking-2001}, which constructs source based multicast trees. Upon receiving a multicast packet, DVMRP routers drop the packet unless it came from the interface on the shortest path to the host, determined via distance vector routing using a variant of RIP. The intuition is that, assuming symmetric links, such a message has necessarily arrived on the optimal multicast tree for its source. That message is then forwarded to all of the router's other interfaces except those which have received prune messages from child routers squelching that group. Prune message are triggered when a router has no child host members of the group and all child routers have issued a prune for the group. Grafts may be triggered to reconstruct the tree if hosts later join the group.