The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)

IGMP

The IP protocol can be involved in two types of communication: unicasting and multicasting. Unicasting is the communication between one sender and one receiver. It is a one-to-one communication. However, some processes sometimes need to send the same message to a large number of receivers simultaneously. This is called multicasting, which is a one-to-many communication. Multicasting has many applications. For example, multiple stockbrokers can simultaneously be informed of changes in a stock price, or travel agents can be informed of a plane cancellation. Some other applications include distance learning and video-on-demand.

The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is one of the necessary, but not sufficient (as we will see), protocols that is involved in multicasting. IGMP is a companion to the IP protocol.

1. Group Management

For multicasting in the Internet we need routers that are able to route multicast packets. The routing tables of these routers must be updated by using one of the multicasting routing protocols. IGMP is not a multicasting routing protocol; it is a protocol that manages group membership. In any network, there are one or more multicast routers that distribute multicast packets to hosts or other routers. The IGMP protocol gives the multicast routers information about the membership status of hosts (routers) connected to the network. A multicast router may receive thousands of multicast packets every day for different groups. If a router has no knowledge about the membership status of the hosts, it must broadcast all these packets. This creates a lot of traffic and consumes bandwidth. A better solution is to keep a list of groups in the network for which there is at least one loyal member. IGMP helps the multicast router create and update this list.

2. IGMP Messages

IOMP has gone through two versions. We discuss IGMPv2, the current version. IGMPv2 has three types of messages: the query, the membership report, and the leave report. There are two types of query messages: general and special.

3. Message Format

Figure 3.37 shows the format of an IOMP (version 2) message.

·           Type. This 8-bit field defines the type of message. The value of the type is shown in bothhexadecimal and binary notation.

·           Maximum Response Time. This 8-bit field defines the amount of time in which a querymust be answered. The value is in tenths of a second; for example, if the value is 100, it means 10 s. The value is nonzero in the query message; it is set to zero in the other two message types.

·           Checksum. This is a 16-bit field carrying the checksum. The checksum is calculated overthe 8-byte message

·           Group address.The value of this field is 0 for a general query message. The valuedefines the group id (multicast address of the group) in the special query, the membership report, and the leave report messages.

4. IGMP Operation

IGMP operates locally. A multicast router connected to a network has a list of multicast addresses of the groups with at least one loyal member in that network. For each group, there is one router that has the duty of distributing the multicast packets destined for that group. This means that if there are three multicast routers connected to a network, their lists of group ids are mutually exclusive.

4.1 Joining a Group

A host or a router can join a group. A host maintains a list of processes that have membership in a group. When a process wants to join a new group, it sends its request to the host. The host adds the name of the process and the name of the requested group to its list. If this is the first entry for this particular group, the host sends a membership report message. If this is not the first entry, there is no need to send the membership report since the host is already a member of the group; it already receives multicast packets for this group. The protocol requires that the membership report be sent twice, one after the other within a few moments. In IGMP, a membership report is sent twice, one after the other.

4.2 Leaving a Group

When a host sees that no process is interested in a specific group, it sends a leave report. Similarly, when a router sees that none of the networks connected to its interfaces is interested in a specific group, it sends a leave report about that group. However, when a multicast router receives a leave report, it cannot immediately purge that group from its list because the report comes from just one host or router; there may be other hosts or routers that are still interested in that group. To make sure, the router sends a special query message and inserts the group id, or multicast address, related to the group. The router allows a specified time for any host or router to respond. If, during this time, no interest (membership report) is received, the router assumes that there are no loyal members in the network and purges the group from its list.

4.3 Monitoring Membership

A host or router can join a group by sending a membership report message. It can leave a group by sending a leave report message. However, sending these two types of reports is not enough. Consider the situation in which there is only one host interested in a group, but the host is shut down or removed from the system. The multicast router will never receive a leave report. How is this handled? The multicast router is responsible for monitoring all the hosts or routers in a LAN to see if they want to continue their membership in a group.

4.4 Delayed Response

To prevent unnecessary traffic, IGMP uses a delayed response strategy. When a host or router receives a query message, it does not respond immediately; it delays the response. Each host or router uses a random number to create a timer, which expires between 1 and l0s. The expiration time can be in steps of 1 s or less. A timer is set for each group in the list.