Source Specific Multicast (SSM). SSM is an extension of IP multicast where datagram traffic is forwarded to receivers from only those multicast sources that the receivers have explicitly joined. For multicast groups configured for SSM, only source-specific multicast distribution trees (not shared trees) are created.

IGMP v3lite is a Cisco-developed transitional solution for application developers to immediately start programming SSM applications. It allows you to write and run SSM applications on hosts that do not yet support IGMPv3 in their operating system kernel.

Applications must be compiled with the Host Side IGMP Library (HSIL) for IGMP v3lite. This software provides applications with a subset of the IGMPv3 applications programming interface (API) that is required to write SSM applications. HSIL was developed for Cisco by Talarian and is available from the following web page:

http://www.talarianmulticast.com/cgi-bin/igmpdownld

One part of the HSIL is a client library linked to the SSM application. It provides the SSM subset of the IGMPv3 API to the SSM application. If possible, the library checks whether the operating system kernel supports IGMPv3. If it does, then the API calls simply are passed through to the kernel. If the kernel does not support IGMPv3, then the library uses the IGMP v3lite mechanism.

When using the IGMP v3lite mechanism, the library tells the operating system kernel to join to the whole multicast group, because joining to the whole group is the only method for the application to receive traffic for that multicast group (if the operating system kernel only supports IGMPv1 or IGMPv2). In addition, the library signals the (S, G) channel subscriptions to an IGMP v3lite server process, which is also part of the HSIL. A server process is needed because multiple SSM applications may be on the same host. This server process will then send IGMP v3lite-specific (S, G) channel subscriptions to the last hop Cisco IOS router, which needs to be enabled for IGMP v3lite. This router will then “see” both the IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 group membership report from the operating system kernel and the (S, G) channel subscription from the HSIL daemon. If the router sees both of these messages, it will interpret them as an SSM (S, G) channel subscription and join to the channel through PIM-SSM. We recommend referring to the documentation accompanying the HSIL software for further information on how to utilize IGMP v3lite with your application.

IGMP v3lite is supported by Cisco only through the API provided by the HSIL, not as a function of the router independent of the HSIL. By default, IGMP v3lite is disabled. When IGMP v3lite is configured through the ip igmp v3lite interface configuration command on an interface, it will be active only for IP multicast addresses in the SSM range.

URD is a Cisco-developed transitional solution that allows existing IP multicast receiver applications to be used with SSM without the need to modify the application and change or add any software on the receiver host running the application. URD is a content provider solution in which the receiver applications can be started or controlled through a web browser.

URD operates by passing a special URL from the web browser to the last hop router. This URL is called a URD intercept URL. A URD intercept URL is encoded with the (S, G) channel subscription and has a format that allows the last hop router to easily intercept it.

As soon as the last hop router intercepts both an (S, G) channel subscription encoded in a URD intercept URL and sees an IGMP group membership report for the same multicast group from the receiver application, the last hop router will use PIM-SSM to join toward the (S, G) channel as long as the application maintains the membership for the multicast group G. The URD intercept URL is thus only needed initially to provide the last hop router with the address of the sources to join to.

A URD intercept URL has the following syntax:

http://
webserver
:465/
path
?group=
group
&source=
source1
&...source=
sourceN
&

The webserver string is the name or IP address to which the URL is targeted. This target need not be the IP address of an existing web server, except for situations where the web server wants to recognize that the last hop router failed to support the URD mechanism. The number 465 indicates the URD port. Port 465 is reserved for Cisco by the IANA for the URD mechanism so that no other applications can use this port.

When the browser of a host encounters a URD intercept URL, it will try to open a TCP connection to the web server on port 465. If the last hop router is enabled for URD on the interface where the router receives the TCP packets from the host, it will intercept all packets for TCP connections destined to port 465 independent of the actual destination address of the TCP connection (independent of the address of the web server). Once intercepted, the last hop router will “speak” a very simple subset of HTTP on this TCP connection, emulating a web server. The only HTTP request that the last hop router will understand and reply to is the following GET request:

GET 
argument
 HTTP/1.0
argument
 = /
path
?group=
group
&source=
source1
&...source=
sourceN
&

When it receives a GET command, the router tries to parse the argument according to this syntax to derive one or more (S, G) channel memberships. The path string of the argument is anything up to, but not including, the first question mark, and is ignored. The group and source1 through sourceN strings are the IP addresses or fully qualified domain names of the channels for which this argument is a subscription request. If the argument matches the syntax shown, the router interprets the argument to be subscriptions for the channels (source1 , group ) through (sourceN , group ).

The router will accept the channel subscriptions if the following conditions are met:

• The IP address of the multicast group is within the SSM range.

• The IP address of the host that originated the TCP connection is directly connected to the router.

If the channel subscription is accepted, the router will respond to the TCP connection with the following HTML page format:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server:cisco IOS
Content-Type:text/html
<html>
<body>
Retrieved URL string successfully
</body>
</html>

If an error condition occurs, the <body> part of the returned HTML page will carry an appropriate error message. The HTML page is a by-product of the URD mechanism. This returned text may, depending on how the web pages carrying a URD intercept URL are designed, be displayed to the user or be sized so that the actual returned HTML page is invisible.

The primary effect of the URD mechanism is that the router will remember received channel subscriptions and will match them against IGMP group membership reports received by the host. The router will “remember” a URD (S, G) channel subscription for up to 3 minutes without a matching IGMP group membership report. As soon as the router sees that it has received both an IGMP group membership report for a multicast group G and a URD (S, G) channel subscription for the same group G, it will join the (S, G) channel through PIM-SSM. The router will then continue to join to the (S, G) channel based only on the presence of a continuing IGMP membership from the host. Thus, one initial URD channel subscription is all that is needed to be added through a web page to enable SSM with URD.

If the last hop router from the receiver host is not enabled for URD, then it will not intercept the HTTP connection toward the web server on port 465. This situation will result in a TCP connection to port 465 on the web server. If no further provisions on the web server are taken, then the user may see a notice (for example, “Connection refused”) in the area of the web page reserved for displaying the URD intercept URL (if the web page was designed to show this output). It is also possible to let the web server “listen” to requests on port 465 and install a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script that would allow the web server to know if a channel subscription failed (for example, to subsequently return more complex error descriptions to the user).

Because the router returns a Content-Type of text and HTML, the best way to include the URD intercept URL into a web page is to use a frame. By defining the size of the frame, you can also hide the URD intercept URL on the displayed page.

By default, URD is disabled on all interfaces. When URD is configured through the ip urd interface configuration command on an interface, it will be active only for IP multicast addresses in the SSM range.