Restrictions for Source Specific Multicast
Legacy Applications Within the SSM Range Restrictions
Existing applications in a network predating SSM will not work within the SSM range unless they are modified to support (S, G) channel subscriptions. Therefore, enabling SSM in a network may cause problems for existing applications if they use addresses within the designated SSM range.
IGMP v3lite Requires a Cisco Last Hop Router
SSM and IGMPv3 are solutions that are being standardized in the IETF. However, IGMP v3lite is a Cisco-developed solutions. For IGMP v3lite to operate properly for a host, the last hop router toward that host must be a Cisco router with IGMP v3lite enabled.
Note |
This limitation does not apply to an application using the HSIL if the host has kernel support for IGMPv3, because then the HSIL will use the kernel IGMPv3 instead of IGMP v3lite. |
Address Management Restrictions
Address management is still necessary to some degree when SSM is used with Layer 2 switching mechanisms. If different receivers in a switched network request different (S, G) channels sharing the same group, then they will not benefit from these existing mechanisms. Instead, both receivers will receive all (S, G) channel traffic (and filter out the unwanted traffic on input). Because of the ability of SSM to reuse the group addresses in the SSM range for many independent applications, this situation can lead to less than expected traffic filtering in a switched network. For this reason it is important to follow the recommendations set forth in the IETF drafts for SSM to use random IP addresses out of the SSM range for an application to minimize the chance for reuse of a single address within the SSM range between different applications. For example, an application service providing a set of television channels should, even with SSM, use a different group for each television (S, G) channel. This setup will guarantee that multiple receivers to different channels within the same application service will never experience traffic aliasing in networks that include Layer 2 switches.
IGMP Snooping Limitations
IGMPv3 uses new membership report messages that may not be recognized correctly by older IGMP Snooping switches, in which case hosts will not properly receive traffic. This situation is not an issue if IGMP v3lite is used with hosts where the operating system is not upgraded for IGMPv3, because IGMP v3lite relies only on IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 membership reports.
State Maintenance Limitations
In PIM-SSM, the last hop router will continue to periodically send (S, G) join messages if appropriate (S, G) subscriptions are on the interfaces. Therefore, as long as receivers send (S, G) subscriptions, the shortest path tree (SPT) state from the receivers to the source will be maintained, even if the source is not sending traffic for longer periods of time (or even never).
This case is opposite to PIM-SM, where (S, G) state is maintained only if the source is sending traffic and receivers are joining the group. If a source stops sending traffic for more than 3 minutes in PIM-SM, the (S, G) state will be deleted and only reestablished after packets from the source arrive again through the RPT. Because no mechanism in PIM-SSM notifies a receiver that a source is active, the network must maintain the (S, G) state in PIM-SSM as long as receivers are requesting receipt of that channel.