1. Introduction

The IEEE bridge standard [BRIDGE] specifies how LAN packets are 'bridged', or as is more commonly used today, switched between LAN segments. The operation of a switch with respect to multicast packets can be summarized as follows. When processing a packet whose destination MAC address is a multicast address, the switch will forward a copy of the packet into each of the remaining network interfaces that are in the forwarding state in accordance with [BRIDGE]. The spanning tree algorithm ensures that the application of this rule at every switch in the network will make the packet accessible to all nodes connected to the network.

This behaviour works well for broadcast packets that are intended to be seen or processed by all connected nodes. In the case of multicast packets, however, this approach could lead to less efficient use of network bandwidth, particularly when the packet is intended for only a small number of nodes. Packets will be flooded into network segments where no node has any interest in receiving the packet. While nodes will rarely incur any processing overhead to filter packets addressed to unrequested group addresses, they are unable to transmit new packets onto the shared media for the period of time that the multicast packet is flooded. In general, significant bandwidth can be wasted by flooding.

In recent years, a number of commercial vendors have introduced products described as "IGMP snooping switches" to the market. These devices do not adhere to the conceptual model that provides the strict separation of functionality between different communications layers in the ISO model, and instead utilize information in the upper level protocol headers as factors to be considered in processing at the lower levels. This is analogous to the manner in which a router can act as a firewall by looking into the transport protocol's header before allowing a packet to be forwarded to its destination address.

In the case of IP multicast traffic, an IGMP snooping switch provides the benefit of conserving bandwidth on those segments of the network where no node has expressed interest in receiving packets addressed to the group address. This is in contrast to normal switch behavior where multicast traffic is typically forwarded on all interfaces.

Many switch datasheets state support for IGMP snooping, but no recommendations for this exist today. It is the authors' hope that the information presented in this document will supply this foundation.

The recommendations presented here are based on the following information sources: The IGMP specifications [RFC1112], [RFC2236] and [IGMPv3], vendor-supplied technical documents [CISCO], bug reports [MSOFT], discussions with people involved in the design of IGMP snooping switches, MAGMA mailing list discussions, and on replies by switch vendors to an implementation questionnaire.

Interoperability issues that arise between different versions of IGMP are not the focus of this document. Interested readers are directed to [IGMPv3] for a thorough description of problem areas.

The suggestions in this document are based on IGMP, which applies only to IPv4. For IPv6, Multicast Listener Discovery [MLD] must be used instead. Because MLD is based on IGMP, we do not repeat the entire description and recommendations for MLD snooping switches. Instead, we point out the few cases where there are differences from IGMP.

Note that the IGMP snooping function should apply only to IPv4 multicasts. Other multicast packets, such as IPv6, might be suppressed by IGMP snooping if additional care is not taken in the implementation as mentioned in the recommendations section.