Reference Guide

Multicast Features

NOTE: Multicast routing is supported on secondary IP addresses; it is not supported on IPv6.

NOTE: Multicast routing is supported across default and non-default virtual routing and forwarding

(VRFs).

The Dell Networking operating system (OS) supports the following multicast protocols:

• PIM Sparse-Mode (PIM-SM)

• Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)

• Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP)

Enabling IP Multicast

Before enabling any multicast protocols, you must enable IP multicast routing. To enable multicast

routing, use the following command.

• Enable multicast routing.

CONFIGURATION mode

ip multicast-routing

Implementation Information

Because protocol control traffic in the Dell Networking OS is redirected using the MAC address, and

multicast control traffic and multicast data traffic might map to the same MAC address, the Dell

Networking OS might forward data traffic with certain MAC addresses to the CPU in addition to control

traffic.

As the upper five bits of an IP Multicast address are dropped in the translation, 32 different multicast

group IDs map to the same Ethernet address. For example, 224.0.0.5 is a known IP address for open

shortest path first (OSPF) that maps to the multicast MAC address 01:00:5e:00:00:05. However,

225.0.0.5, 226.0.0.5, and so on, map to the same multicast MAC address. The Layer 2 forwarding

information base (FIB) alone cannot differentiate multicast control traffic and multicast data traffic with

the same address, so if you use IP address 225.0.0.5 for data traffic, both the multicast data and OSPF

control traffic match the same entry and are forwarded to the CPU. Therefore, do not use well-known

protocol multicast addresses for data transmission, such as the following:

Protocol Ethernet Address

OSPF

01:00:5e:00:00:05

01:00:5e:00:00:06

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Multicast Features