All things related to multicast

[Tom Pusateri <>]

I have been trying to get IGMPv3 support into MacOSX for several years.
I approached apple developers and was told the best way to get it in
was through a FreeBSD network stack upgrade since these typically get
brought in to MacOSX at regular intervals.

FreeBSD has been importing networking stack improvements from KAME
(a research group in Japan mostly dedicated to IPv6 and IPsec, see
www.kame.net).

KAME has an IGMPv3 and MLDv2 for FreeBSD but has been hesitant to import
it into FreeBSD due to Apple's Intellectual Property Rights claims
on Source Specific Multicast:

http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/APPLE-SSM.txt

Thus, creating a circular loop that I've been trying to break for years.

In October of 2004, people at KAME were considering whether they can
break their IGMPv3 implementation into host and router sides and just
import the host side (which they believe isn't covered by the IPR claims).
But I haven't heard anything new about this for a while. I pinged the
KAME guys in December but never heard anything.

I set up a mailing list to discuss this if anyone wants to contribute:
http://www.mountain2sea.com/mailman/listinfo/igmpv3-freebsd

One of the biggest obstacles for SSM is the constant battle between
content and receivers.

Its hard to find compelling content for a small number of receivers and
its hard to increase the number of receivers without content.

Its also hard to secure the rights to content if we wanted to bootstrap
something. I have a proposal that out send out as a seperate note
and see if we can change some of this!

Thanks,
Tom

In message 
<p06210205be522de41455@[192.17.25.226]>
 you write:
>So I've got a feature request in at Apple for IGMPv3 support, and 
>they'd like to know what Mac users wont be able to do if we don't 
>have that support.  I'm not that up on what's out there SSM-wise, can 
>those of you that know what's available now, and what's in the 
>pipeline that is SSM based help me out here?
>
>any other useful points I should make? does having an IGMPv2 speaker 
>using multicast on the same subnet as IGMPv3 speakers cause issues, 
>problems (I vaguely recall that the local switch might back out to 
>v2, but I'm not sure if that's only for the one host or for 
>everything...).
>
>thanks for any help you can provide!
>
>
>>The feature has been requested and I'd be happy to add impact 
>>information if you can give me some kind of idea about how this 
>>University will be impacted. I know that the number of machines will 
>>be difficult to determine, but what features or services will Mac OS 
>>X clients be unable to use should IGMPv3 not be added when the 
>>University starts using it? I read the part about wanting to use the 
>>Mac OS X machine for testing purposes, but more information on how 
>>it affects everyone else will help.
>
>-- 
>
>-debbie
>Debbie Fligor, n9dn       Network Engineer, CITES, Univ. of Il
>email: 
>
>          <http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/fligor>
>"Every keystroke can be monitored. And the computers never forget."