IPv6 Multicast
These are my notes for IPv6 multicast for the CCDE exam. Overview
- Prefix FF::/8 reserved for multicast
- Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) replaces IGMP
- MLD is part of ICMPv6
- MLDv1 equivalent to IGMPv2
- MLDv2 equivalent to IGMPv3
- ASM, SSM and Bidir supported
- PIM identified by IPv6 next header 103
- BSR and static RP supported
- No support for MSDP
- Anycast supported through PIM, defined in RFC4610
- Any Source Multicast (ASM)
- PIM-SM, PIM-BiDir
- Default for generic multicast and unicast prefix-based multicast
- Starts with FF3x::/12
- Source Specific Multicast (SSM)
- PIM-SSM
- FF3X::/32 is allocated for SSM by IANA
- Currently prefix and plen is zero so FF3X::/96 is useable for SSM
- Embedded RP groups
- PIM-SM, PIM-BIDir
- Starts with FF70::/12
IPv6 Multicast Addressing
IPv6 multicast address format includes variable bits to define what type of address it is and what the scope is of the multicast group. The scope can be:
1 – Node
2 – Link
3 – Subnet
4 – Admin
5 – Site
8 – Organization
E – Global
The flags define if embedded RP is used, if the address is based on unicast and if the address is IANA assigned or not (temporary). The unicast based IPv6 multicast address allows an organization to Continue reading
No Starch Press recently offered me a preview copy of a new book about the GNS3 network simulator, titled The Book of GNS3 written by Jason Neumann. This book covers the new version of GNS3, GNS3 1.x. Here is my review of The Book of GNS3.

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