Re: New draft on embedding the RP address in IPv6 multicast address

[Brian Haberman <bkhabs@nc.rr.com>]

Bill Nickless wrote:
> At 08:24 AM 10/17/2002 -0400, Brian Haberman wrote:
>
> > You're not wrong.  The key is convincing switch vendors to support
> > IGMPv3 and MLDv2 snooping ASAP.  Tell your vendors you want/need
> > this functionality.  And tell them that you want them to implement
> > draft-ietf-magma-snoop-02.txt.
>
> What you just wrote is the orthodox view in the IP multicast community.
>
> When I read that, I hear the IP multicast community saying:
>
> "We developed this IP multicast thing before 802.11 switches existed.  
> MAC-based receiver registration isn't needed on single-collision-domain 
> 10Base5 Ethernet segments, so we didn't bother with that when we 
> developed the IP multicast protocols like IGMP.
>
> "If the world is going to use 802.11 MAC-based switches, well then the 
> 802.11 MAC-based switches had better emulate a single-collision-domain 
> segment, interpreting IPv4/IGMP and IPv6/MLD datagrams as necessary.  
> We're not going to change our way of doing things because we were here 
> first."
Sounds to me like you just described a MAC-layer group management
protocol.  Since the IETF generally stays at Layer 3 (Sub-IP
excluded), it is out of our control.

Perhaps you should petition the IEEE to develop this protocol or
write a draft on how a layer 3 devices should advertise their
interest in receiving packets on layer 2 addresses.

Regards,
Brian