To start implementing multicasting in the campus network, users must first define who receives the multicast. The MLD protocol
is used by IPv6 devices to discover the presence of multicast listeners (for example, nodes that want to receive multicast
packets) on their directly attached links, and to discover specifically which multicast addresses are of interest to those
neighboring nodes. It is used for discovering local group and source-specific group membership. The MLD protocol provides
a means to automatically control and limit the flow of multicast traffic throughout your network with the use of special multicast
queriers and hosts.
The difference between multicast queriers and hosts is as follows:
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A querier is a network device, such as a device, that sends query messages to discover which network devices are members
of a given multicast group.
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A host is a receiver, including devices, that send report messages to inform the querier of a host membership.
A set of queriers and hosts that receive multicast data streams from the same source is called a multicast group. Queriers
and hosts use MLD reports to join and leave multicast groups and to begin receiving group traffic.
MLD uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) to carry its messages. All MLD messages are link-local with a hop limit
of 1, and they all have the alert option set. The alert option implies an implementation of the hop-by-hop option header.
MLD has three types of messages:
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Query--General, group-specific, and multicast-address-specific. In a query message, the multicast address field is set to
0 when MLD sends a general query. The general query learns which multicast addresses have listeners on an attached link.
Group-specific and multicast-address-specific queries are the same. A group address is a multicast address.
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Report--In a report message, the multicast address field is that of the specific IPv6 multicast address to which the sender
is listening.
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Done--In a done message, the multicast address field is that of the specific IPv6 multicast address to which the source of
the MLD message is no longer listening.
An MLD report must be sent with a valid IPv6 link-local source address, or the unspecified address (::), if the sending interface
has not yet acquired a valid link-local address. Sending reports with the unspecified address is allowed to support the use
of IPv6 multicast in the Neighbor Discovery Protocol.
For stateless autoconfiguration, a node is required to join several IPv6 multicast groups in order to perform duplicate address
detection (DAD). Prior to DAD, the only address the reporting node has for the sending interface is a tentative one, which
cannot be used for communication. Therefore, the unspecified address must be used.
MLD states that result from MLD version 2 or MLD version 1 membership reports can be limited globally or by interface. The
MLD group limits feature provides protection against denial of service (DoS) attacks caused by MLD packets. Membership reports
in excess of the configured limits will not be entered in the MLD cache, and traffic for those excess membership reports will
not be forwarded.
MLD provides support for source filtering. Source filtering allows a node to report interest in listening to packets only
from specific source addresses (as required to support SSM), or from all addresses except specific source addresses sent to
a particular multicast address.
When a host using MLD version 1 sends a leave message, the device needs to send query messages to reconfirm that this host
was the last MLD version 1 host joined to the group before it can stop forwarding traffic. This function takes about 2 seconds.
This "leave latency" is also present in IGMP version 2 for IPv4 multicast.
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