APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SUPPORTING BROADCAST/MULTICAST IP PACKETS THROUGH A SIMPLIFIED SOCKETS INTERFACE

摘要

A method for configuring an IP address to receive broadcast or multicast data flow which modifies the bind() Application Programming Interface (API) to survey available local interfaces to determine their ability to be configured to receive data from a particular IP address, configure a interface to receive the IP address if it is so configurable, bind the IP address to that interface. The modified bind*() API may interact with one or more interfaces to see if each interface is capable of being configured to the IP address. Alternatively, the modified bind*() API determines the configurability of interfaces by consulting the access control list. Policy based routing rules may be implemented so that the modified bind*() operation configures the highest priority interface based upon policy parameters.