Technique to submit multicast membership state in absence of querier

摘要

A method of submitting multicast membership packets by a host in a multicast domain in absence of a querier to trigger those packets is provided. The host includes a silent state and an active state. In the silent state, the host receives membership query packets from a querier and responds by sending multicast report packets to multicast group addresses that the host is joined. When a membership query packet is not received during a configurable period of time, the host changes from the silent state to active state and starts sending unsolicited multicast report packets to the multicast addresses that the host has joined.

主权项

1. A method of submitting multicast membership packets in a network comprising a plurality of hosts and a switching device comprising a set of ports, the switching device maintaining a multicast group table for each port to identify a set of multicast group addresses that at least one host connected to the port has joined, the method comprising:
from a first host connected to a first port of the switching device, sending a multicast packet to a first multicast group address to join the first multicast group address; at the first host, determining that a multicast membership query has not been received by the first host for a particular period of time, the particular period of time determined based on a time out period the switching device uses to remove the first multicast group address from the first port multicast group table when a multicast report packet addressed to the first multicast group is not received at the first port during the time out period; and sending a multicast report packet from the first host to the first multicast group address without receiving a multicast membership query based on the determination that a multicast membership query has not been received by the first host for the particular period of time.