PIM Backup Designated Router Procedure

On a multi-access LAN such as an Ethernet, one of the PIM routers is elected as a DR. The PIM DR has two roles in the PIM-SM protocol. On the first hop network, the PIM DR is responsible for registering an active source with the Rendezvous Point (RP) if the group is operating in PIM-SM. On the last hop LAN, the PIM DR is responsible for tracking local multicast listeners and forwarding to these listeners if the group is operating in PIM-SM. Consider the following last hop LAN in Figure 1:

Assume R1 is elected as the Designated Router. According to , R1 will be responsible for forwarding traffic to that LAN on behalf of any local member. In addition to keeping track of IGMP and MLD membership reports, R1 is also responsible for initiating the creation of source and/or shared trees towards the senders or the RPs. There are multiple reasons for why network could potentially trigger DR re-election. Some of the reasons are R1 going down Access interface towards shared LAN going down Config changed with lower DR priority When any of above network event occurs, PIM DR re-election would be triggered. When a new DR is elected in shared LAN, new DR would be responsible to build a multicast tree towards source / RP. There are some cases, where traffic is crucial and the operator wants to have minimum traffic loss with DR failure. To address this requirement, this draft introduces a backup DR election procedure which would minimize traffic loss during PIM DR failure.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in . BDR - PIM Backup DR With respect to PIM, this document follows the terminology that has been defined in .

defines procedure to solve same problem which was stated in the introduction section of this draft. introduces new PIM Hello options for election of backup PIM DR. This draft provides mechanism to elect BDR without using any new PIM Hello.

defines procedure for PIM DR election. PIM DR is elected on interface "I" among all PIM routers for which "I" has received PIM Hello. BDR election follows the exact same procedure and the second best PIM DR on shared LAN to be chosen as BDR on interface "I" BDR would perform each of the responsibility of PIM DR except it would not forward traffic on shared LAN.

When PIM DR fails, PIM DR re-election is triggered on shared LAN. Since BDR is second best DR in LAN, it MUST take over immediately and MUST start forwarding multicast traffic on shared LAN. Again on a shared LAN, new BDR would be elected. and current BDR would be the new DR.

When an existing PIM BDR fails, the shared LAN MUST have BDR re-election using the DR election procedure from .

When a new PIM router is added in shared LAN, It could be either one of the below defined roles.

When a new PIM router is added in a shared LAN and has the highest PIM DR priority configured, if a new router starts propagating its configured DR priority right away, the existing PIM DR would give up its role. Then there would be potential traffic loss till the new DR learns about membership states and builds a multicast tree to the source or RP. To avoid any such traffic loss situation, new PIM router SHOULD send a PIM Hello with priority 0. After 2 (default value, SHOULD have way to configure) PIM Hello interval or IGMP Query Interval (Which ever is higher) it SHOULD start propagating its original configured DR priority. Even though a new PIM router propagating its priority as 0, it MUST start building a multicast tree towards source / RP, This is So that traffic loss could be minimized once it starts sending Hello with configured DR priority. For a brief amount of time, there would be multiple copies of flows present in the multicast core, but a user SHOULD be able to configure whether to send hello with 0 priority or a configured priority. Depending on the application tolerance (Traffic loss Vs Extra traffic in core) the operator can choose option whichever is suitable for network. After a PIM Hello or IGMP Query interval, the network would get stable with only one DR and one BDR.

It SHOULD follow the exact same procedure defined in the previous section.

First a PIM Hello MUST be sent with priority 0. Once it has gotten Hello from other PIM neighbors, it knows that it is not eligible to be PIM DR or BDR. It MUST send configured PIM DR priority immediately. It MUST not wait for next hello interval.

In this case, initially each of the PIM routers would send Hellos with priorities of 0. If a PIM router receives all Hellos with priorities 0, it MUST send out a Hello with a configured PIM DR priority. Since it is initial startup case, it would take up to one Hello interval to converge.

Easy to implement as it uses an existing PIM procedure to elect DR. Does not introduce any new Hello option

The author would like to thank Stig Venaas, Tharak Abraham, Anish Kachinthaya, Anvitha Kachinthaya for helping with original idea.