Embedded RP IPv6 Multicast

The embedded RP feature that works for IPv6 multicast is a cool trick that embeds the IPv6 address of the RP within the IPv6 multicast group address. By doing this, multicast enabled routers can extract the RP address just by looking at the multicast group address and use it for a shared tree. The only router where you have to configure the RP address is on the RP itself…that’s it!

There is one problem however…how are we going to fit an 128-bit IPv6 address of the RP within a 128-bit multicast group address? It doesn’t fit! To get around this problem we have to use some form of compression.

In this tutorial I will show you what the embedded RP address looks like, how to create one yourself and we will configure a small network to use this feature.

This is what the embedded RP address looks like:

This picture doesn’t tell you much so let me explain what everything means:

• The first 8 blue bits called “M” define the type of IPv6 address, we are using multicast which means that the first 8 bits have to be set at 1111 1111. In hexadecimal this is “FF”.
• The next 4 red bits called “F” are for the flags. When we use the embedded RP feature we have to set these bits to 0111. In hexadecimal this is “7”. This is a great identifier when you are looking at an IPv6 multicast address. When you see the “7”at this position you know we are dealing with an embedded RP address.
• The 4 green bits called “S” are the scope. You can use this to define if your multicast traffic should be routed or not, kept within your own network or if it can be used globally. We have some options that we can choose from here:
  • Interface-Local scope (1)
  • Link-Local scope (2)
  • Admin-Local scope (4)
  • Site-Local scope (5)
  • Organization-Local scope (8)
  • Global scope (E)
• The 4 yellow bits called “R” are reserved bits, these are always set to 0.
• The 4 purple bits called “I” is the RP interface identifier. We take the last 4 bits of the IPv6 address that we will use as the RP and add those here.
• The 8 olive green bits called “H” is the prefix length in hexadecimal. When you have a prefix length of 64 bits you will add “40” here. (64 in decimal = 40 in hexadecimal).
• The 64 dark blue bits called “P” is the prefix of the IPv6 address that we use as the RP.
• The last 32 light blue bits called “G” is to define the multicast group address. With 32 bits this means our first group address will be 0000:0001 and the last group address is FFFF:FFFF.

To understand how to create your own embedded RP address, it’s best to look at an actual example. Let’s imagine we want to use IPv6 address FC00:2:2:2::2 /64 as our RP. What will the embedded RP address look like? I’ll break it down for you:

• The first 8 bits are FF because we have a multicast address.
• The flags are set to 7 because we use the embedded RP feature.
• The scope is set to organization-local scope. You can pick whatever you like.

• The reserved bits are set to 0, we can’t choose anything else here.
• The RP interface ID is set to 2. These are the last 4 bits of our RP IPv6 address (FC00:2:2:2::2).
• The prefix length is set to 40 since we are using a prefix length of /64.  64 in decimal is 40 in hexadecimal.

• The prefix of our RP IPv6 address is FC00:2:2:2 so we can just add it here.

• With 32 bits there are a lot of group addresses you can use. The first group address starts at 0000:0001 and the last group address is FFFF:FFFF.

The complete embedded RP address will look like this:

I used the first available group address in this example. Are you following me so far? Let’s configure a small network and use the addresses that I just showed you!

Configuration

To demonstrate the embedded RP I will use a small network with 3 routers. R2 will be the embedded RP using the IPv6 address on its loopback, R1 will join a multicast group address and R3 will send some traffic to this address. For connectivity, we will use OSPFv3. Here’s what it looks like:

The first thing we should do is enable unicast and multicast routing for IPv6 on all routers:

R1, R2 & R3:
(config)#ipv6 unicast-routing
(config)#ipv6 multicast-routing

Let’s add some IPv6 addresses:

R1(config)#interface fastEthernet 0/0
R1(config-if)#ipv6 address fc00:12:12:12::1/64

R2(config)#interface FastEthernet 0/0
R2(config-if)#ipv6 address fc00:12:12:12::2/64
R2(config-if)#interface FastEthernet f0/1
R2(config-if)#ipv6 address fc00:23:23:23::2/64

R2(config)#interface loopback 0
R2(config-if)#ipv6 address fc00:2:2:2::2/64

R3(config)#interface FastEthernet 0/0
R3(config-if)#ipv6 address fc00:23:23:23::3/64

To make sure R1 and R3 know how to reach the RP, we will add OSPFv3:

R1(config-if)#ipv6 router ospf 1
R1(config-rtr)#router-id 1.1.1.1

R1(config-rtr)#interface FastEthernet 0/0
R1(config-if)#ipv6 ospf 1 area 0

R2(config-if)#ipv6 router ospf 1
R2(config-rtr)#router-id 2.2.2.2

R2(config-rtr)#interface FastEthernet 0/0
R2(config-if)#ipv6 ospf 1 area 0

R2(config-rtr)#interface FastEthernet 0/1
R2(config-if)#ipv6 ospf 1 area 0

R2(config-rtr)#interface Loopback 0
R2(config-if)#ipv6 ospf 1 area 0

R3(config-if)#ipv6 router ospf 1
R3(config-rtr)#router-id 3.3.3.3

R3(config-rtr)#interface FastEthernet 0/0
R3(config-if)#ipv6 ospf 1 area 0

Now we will configure R2 as the RP, this is the only router where you have to configure this:

R2(config)#ipv6 pim rp-address fc00:2:2:2::2

Let’s configure R1 to join a multicast group address that has FC00:2:2:2::2 as the embedded RP:

R1(config)#interface FastEthernet 0/0
R1(config-if)#ipv6 mld join-group FF78:0240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1

That’s all we have to configure to get this show on the road. Let’s verify our work!

Verification

R1 has joined a multicast group address so let’s see what R2 thinks of that:

R2#show ipv6 mroute 
Multicast Routing Table
Flags: D - Dense, S - Sparse, B - Bidir Group, s - SSM Group, 
       C - Connected, L - Local, I - Received Source Specific Host Report,
       P - Pruned, R - RP-bit set, F - Register flag, T - SPT-bit set,
       J - Join SPT 
Timers: Uptime/Expires
Interface state: Interface, State

(*, FF78:240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1), 00:05:23/never, RP FC00:2:2:2::2, flags: SCJ
  Incoming interface: Tunnel2
  RPF nbr: FC00:2:2:2::2
  Immediate Outgoing interface list:
    FastEthernet0/0, Forward, 00:05:23/never

It looks promising, R2 has an entry for the multicast group address and it shows its loopback address as the RP. It seems R1 figured out how to reach the RP…let’s try a ping from R3:

R3#ping FF78:240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1
Output Interface: FastEthernet0/0
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to FF78:240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1, timeout is 2 seconds:
Packet sent with a source address of FC00:23:23:23::3

Reply to request 0 received from FC00:12:12:12::1, 32 ms
Reply to request 1 received from FC00:12:12:12::1, 36 ms
Reply to request 2 received from FC00:12:12:12::1, 28 ms
Reply to request 3 received from FC00:12:12:12::1, 36 ms
Reply to request 4 received from FC00:12:12:12::1, 36 ms
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 28/33/36 ms
5 multicast replies and 0 errors.

Great! our ping from R3 is getting a response from R1, let’s take one more look at the multicast routing table of R2:

R2#show ipv6 mroute        
Multicast Routing Table
Flags: D - Dense, S - Sparse, B - Bidir Group, s - SSM Group, 
       C - Connected, L - Local, I - Received Source Specific Host Report,
       P - Pruned, R - RP-bit set, F - Register flag, T - SPT-bit set,
       J - Join SPT 
Timers: Uptime/Expires
Interface state: Interface, State

(*, FF78:240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1), 00:07:51/never, RP FC00:2:2:2::2, flags: SCJ
  Incoming interface: Tunnel2
  RPF nbr: FC00:2:2:2::2
  Immediate Outgoing interface list:
    FastEthernet0/0, Forward, 00:07:51/never

(FC00:23:23:23::3, FF78:240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1), 00:00:37/00:02:52, flags: SJT
  Incoming interface: FastEthernet0/1
  RPF nbr: FE80::C002:29FF:FEE2:0
  Inherited Outgoing interface list:
    FastEthernet0/0, Forward, 00:07:51/never

R2 receives the traffic from R3 and forwards it down to R1. Our routers figured out how to extract the RP address from the multicast group address and everything is working!

hostname R1
!
ipv6 unicast-routing
ipv6 cef
ipv6 multicast-routing
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 no ip address
 ipv6 address FC00:12:12:12::1/64
 ipv6 mld join-group FF78:240:FC00:2:2:2:0:1
 ipv6 ospf 1 area 0
!
ipv6 router ospf 1
 router-id 1.1.1.1
!
end

hostname R2
!
ipv6 unicast-routing
ipv6 cef
ipv6 multicast-routing
!
interface Loopback0
 no ip address
 ipv6 address FC00:2:2:2::2/64
 ipv6 ospf 1 area 0
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 no ip address
 ipv6 address FC00:12:12:12::2/64
 ipv6 ospf 1 area 0
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
 no ip address
 ipv6 address FC00:23:23:23::2/64
 ipv6 ospf 1 area 0
!
ipv6 pim rp-address FC00:2:2:2::2
ipv6 router ospf 1
 router-id 2.2.2.2
!
end

hostname R3
!
ipv6 unicast-routing
ipv6 cef
ipv6 multicast-routing
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 no ip address
 ipv6 address fc00:23:23:23::3/64
 ipv6 ospf 1 area 0
!
ipv6 router ospf 1
 router-id 3.3.3.3
!
end

That’s also the end of this tutorial, hopefully you now understand how to calculate the embedded RP address. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.