[Xorp-users] running IP multicast using xorp with click

[Yaping Zhu]

hi Bruce,
thanks a lot!

Yaping

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce M. Simpson" <bms at icsi.berkeley.edu>
To: "Yaping Zhu" <yapingz at CS.Princeton.EDU>
Cc: "Pavlin Radoslavov" <pavlin at icsi.berkeley.edu>; <xorp-users at xorp.org>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Xorp-users] running IP multicast using xorp with click


> Yaping Zhu wrote:
>> ...
>> and, the only interface between xorp and Click (or whatever data plane 
>> environment) is the multicast forward table, is it correct?
>>
>> so that the data plane (of Click) has to support: multicast forwarding. 
>> when receiving packets destinated to multicast group address, it looks up 
>> the forwarding table, and copy the packets through multiple interfaces 
>> for the group. is it also correct?
>>
>
> It seems like the following work would need to be done:
>
> * implement Click elements which can run to implement multicast 
> forwarding.
>   Someone's already done this for IPv6, IPv4 may require work:
>    http://read.cs.ucla.edu/click/packages/multicast6
>
> * implement the parts of the XORP MFEA necessary to communicate with 
> Click.
>   Currently these don't exist.
>
> * The autoconf scripts in config/ would need to be updated to learn about 
> the existence of Click elements supporting a new multicast forwarding API.
>
> * The Click version of the FEA process would need to be modified to pick 
> up the new MFEA back-end supporting Click.
>
> XORP's MFEA uses the IP MROUTING family of interfaces which exist in the 
> BSDs and which are also supported by Linux to talk to the multicast 
> forwarding cache.
>
> Pavlin may have more to say on this as most likely the MFEA would need 
> refactoring to accomodate multiple APIs. Windows, for example, uses a 
> completely different API which involves a number of userland DLLs.
>
> This is not an insignificant amount of work, as it requires refactoring 
> the MFEA, however, it's not a huge project either.
>
> cheers
> BMS
>