Multicast protocols

Layer 3 multicast protocols include:
  • IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) for last-hop multicast group management. Current RFCs include:

    • IGMPv2 (RFC 2236)

    • IGMPv3 (RFC 3376)

  • MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) v1 and v2

    • MLD v1 - RFC 2710

    • MLD v2 - RFC 3810

Layer 2 multicast protocol:

  • IGMP snooping for IPv4 multicast filtering.

  • MLD snooping for IPv6 multicast filtering.