Multicast Routing in a Datagram Internetwork

摘要

The authors present a new service model for multicasting in a datagram (orconnectionless) internetwork, and a set of new store-and-forward multicast routing algorithms to support that service model. The multicast service model, which the authors call the Host Group Model, is a natural generalization of the unicast service model offered by datagram internetworks. Multicast packets are delivered to each member of a multicast group with the same 'best-efforts' reliability and performance as unicast packets to that member. Multicast groups may be of arbitrary size, may change membership dynamically, and may have either global scope, that is, with members located anywhere in the internetwork, or local scope, with members confined to a particular administrative domain. Senders of multicast packets need not belong to the destination groups and need not know the membership of the groups. The new multicast routing algorithms to support the Host Group Model take the form of extensions to the two unicast routing