SSM mapping supports SSM transition in cases where neither URD nor IGMP v3lite is available, or when supporting SSM on the end system is impossible or unwanted due to administrative or technical reasons. Using SSM to deliver live streaming video to legacy STBs that do not support IGMPv3 is a typical application of SSM mapping.
Prior to the introduction of SSM mapping, the following conditions would have prevented SSM transition in the case of legacy STB deployments with STB receivers that only support IGMPv1 or IGMPv2:
- The operating system on the receivers do not support IGMPv3; thus, IGMPv3 cannot be used to support SSM.
- Moreover, the application running on the receivers cannot be upgraded to support SSM; thus, IGMPv3 lite cannot be used to support SSM transition.
- To further exacerbate the issue, the application itself cannot be started through a web browser; thus, URD cannot be used to support SSM transition.
SSM mapping provides an SSM transition solution for hosts and applications that meet those conditions.
In a typical STB deployment, each TV channel uses one separate IP multicast group and has one active server host sending the TV channel. A single server may of course send multiple TV channels, but each to a different group. In this network environment, if a router receives an IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 membership report for a particular group G, the report implicitly addresses the well-known TV server for the TV channel associated with the multicast group.
SSM mapping introduces a means for the last hop router to discover sources sending to groups. When SSM mapping is configured, if a router receives an IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 membership report for a particular group G, the router translates this report into one or more (S, G) channel memberships for the well-known sources associated with this group.
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As is the case for the other SSM transition solutions (URD and IGMP v3lite), SSM mapping only needs to be configured on the last hop router connected to receivers. No support is needed on any other routers in the network. SSM mapping, in addition, is fully compatible with IGMPv3, IGMP v3lite, and URD.
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When the router receives an IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 membership report for group G, the router uses SSM mapping to determine one or more source IP addresses for group G. SSM mapping then translates the membership report as an IGMPv3 report INCLUDE (G, [S1, G], [S2, G]...[Sn, G] and continues as if it had received an IGMPv3 report. The router then sends out PIM joins toward (S1, G) to (Sn, G) and continues to be joined to these groups as long as it continues to receive the IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 membership reports and as long as the SSM mapping for the group remains the same. SSM mapping, thus, enables you to leverage SSM for video delivery to legacy STBs that do not support IGMPv3 or for applications that do not take advantage of the IGMPv3 host stack.
SSM mapping enables the last hop router to determine the source addresses either by a statically configured table on the router or by consulting a DNS server. When the statically configured table is changed, or when the DNS mapping changes, the router will leave the current sources associated with the joined groups.
DNS-Based SSM Mapping
DNS-based SSM mapping enables you to configure the last hop router to perform a reverse DNS lookup to determine sources sending to groups (see the figure below). When DNS-based SSM mapping is configured, the router constructs a domain name that includes the group address G and performs a reverse lookup into the DNS. The router looks up IP address resource records (IP A RRs) to be returned for this constructed domain name and uses the returned IP addresses as the source addresses associated with this group. SSM mapping supports up to 20 sources for each group. The router joins all sources configured for a group.
Figure 1 |
DNS-Based SSM-Mapping |
The SSM mapping mechanism that enables the last hop router to join multiple sources for a group can be used to provide source redundancy for a TV broadcast. In this context, the redundancy is provided by the last hop router using SSM mapping to join two video sources simultaneously for the same TV channel. However, to prevent the last hop router from duplicating the video traffic, it is necessary that the video sources utilize a server-side switchover mechanism where one video source is active while the other backup video source is passive. The passive source waits until an active source failure is detected before sending the video traffic for the TV channel. The server-side switchover mechanism, thus, ensures that only one of the servers is actively sending the video traffic for the TV channel.
To look up one or more source addresses for a group G that includes G1, G2, G3, and G4, the following DNS resource records (RRs) must be configured on the DNS server:
G4.G3.G2.G1 [multicast-domain] [timeout] |
IN A source-address-1 |
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IN A source-address-2 |
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IN A source-address-n |
The multicast-domain argument is a configurable DNS prefix. The default DNS prefix is in-addr.arpa. You should only use the default prefix when your installation is either separate from the internet or if the group names that you map are global scope group addresses (RFC 2770 type addresses that you configure for SSM) that you own.
The timeout argument configures the length of time for which the router performing SSM mapping will cache the DNS lookup. This argument is optional and defaults to the timeout of the zone in which this entry is configured. The timeout indicates how long the router will keep the current mapping before querying the DNS server for this group. The timeout is derived from the cache time of the DNS RR entry and can be configured for each group/source entry on the DNS server. You can configure this time for larger values if you want to minimize the number of DNS queries generated by the router. Configure this time for a low value if you want to be able to quickly update all routers with new source addresses.
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Refer to your DNS server documentation for more information about configuring DNS RRs.
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To configure DNS-based SSM mapping in the software, you must configure a few global commands but no per-channel specific configuration is needed. There is no change to the configuration for SSM mapping if additional channels are added. When DNS-based SSM mapping is configured, the mappings are handled entirely by one or more DNS servers. All DNS techniques for configuration and redundancy management can be applied to the entries needed for DNS-based SSM mapping.