RFC 3678 (rfc3678) - Page 1 of 18

Socket Interface Extensions for Multicast Source Filters

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Network Working Group                                          D. Thaler
Request for Comments: 3678                                     Microsoft
Category: Informational                                        B. Fenner
                                                           AT&T Research
                                                                B. Quinn
                                                            Stardust.com
                                                            January 2004


        Socket Interface Extensions for Multicast Source Filters

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMPv3) for IPv4 and the
   Multicast Listener Discovery (MLDv2) for IPv6 add the capability for
   applications to express source filters on multicast group
   memberships, which allows receiver applications to determine the set
   of senders (sources) from which to accept multicast traffic.  This
   capability also simplifies support of one-to-many type multicast
   applications.

   This document specifies new socket options and functions to manage
   source filters for IP Multicast group memberships.  It also defines
   the socket structures to provide input and output arguments to these
   new application program interfaces (APIs).  These extensions are
   designed to provide access to the source filtering features, while
   introducing a minimum of change into the system and providing
   complete compatibility for existing multicast applications.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   2.  Design Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
       2.1 What Needs to be Added . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.2 Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.3 Headers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.4 Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3. Overview of APIs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5



Thaler, et al.               Informational
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