IPv6 Multicast Configuration

IP multicast is a method of sending Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams to a group of interested receivers in a single transmission. It is the IP-specific form of multicast and is used for streaming media and other network applications. It uses specially reserved multicast address blocks in IPv4 and IPv6.

Unicast packets are delivered to a specific recipient on an Ethernet or IEEE 802.3 subnet by setting a specific layer 2 MAC address on the Ethernet packet address. Broadcast packets make use of a broadcast MAC address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF). For IPv6 multicast addresses, the Ethernet MAC is derived by the four low-order octets OR'ed with the MAC 33:33:00:00:00:00, so for example the IPv6 address FF02:DEAD:BEEF::1:3 would map to the Ethernet MAC address 33:33:00:01:00:03.

This section covers how to configure the IPv6 multicast.