Help with IGMP

I'm facing some issues with IGMP, but unfortunately know next to nothing about it. The extent of my knowledge is that adding and removing verious iterations of 'ip igmp snooping' globally or per VLAN sometimes results in a working config :-)

We have several 2960s that feed small streaming networks, with one or more VOD or other streaming video server. Those servers have various test clips, video sent by customers for troubleshooting, etc. We just got in a big satellite dish that has feeds for several channels, and i'm trying to reliably get the video from it.

Behind the receivers for the dish is a 48 port 2960. Someone added a crossconnect from that switch to one of the streaming networks. It looked like traffic from the streaming network was flooding onto the satellite distribution switch... Wireshark showed a lot of stuff with source addresses that I recognized as being on that streaming network. I thought that, with IGMP, you had to specifically "join" a "channel", so I'm not sure why this happened. All of that traffic seemed to bring the satellite switch to it's knees... no hosts on it could ping each other, and we could not play any video signals with VLC on a laptop connected directly to that switch.

Once I removed that crossconnect, things improved. One laptop with VLC was able to play Animal Planet HD, but it was extremely choppy... horrible pixelation, short "freezes", etc.

I connected another laptop, and if I start to play Animal Planet HD, I can see 8.9 Mb/s of traffic coming in, but it just sits on one frame. I cannot play any othere channels. After a few minutes, VLC bombs out and wants to send it's useless error report of into the ether.

I realize I'm not giving a lot of useful info here, but I have no idea what else could be pertinent. I can find my way around IOS, but I know nothing about multicast. I could use any suggestions on how to correctly set up a Cisco switch for multicast, or any pointers to material that might help.

Reply to
John Oliver
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IGMP is only one half of the equation when configuring multicast. IGMP is the layer 2 protocol to allow switch interfaces to join multcast streams. If the multicast source is on a different subnet/VLAN you must also have PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast), and multicast routing enabled on your layer 3 routers. You also need to configure an RP ("Rendezvous Point") somewhere on your network. Without knowing more details of your network, I can't offer any configurations, but is pretty simple to configure. Search PIM, and auto-RP for more info.

Reply to
Thrill5

All of this multicast traffic is on a single segment / subnet. At least for now, there is no routing between them. There are some switches where this "just works".

Another issue I've run into before is where a given network "doesn't work" when plugged into a Cisco 2960, but "does work" when plugged into a dumb Dell 2724. Clearly, there's a config issue on the Cisco side.

An example:

TestSwitch#sh run Building configuration...

Current configuration : 4501 bytes ! ! Last configuration change at 13:43:36 PDT Fri Aug 8 2008 by user ! NVRAM config last updated at 13:43:45 PDT Fri Aug 8 2008 by user ! version 12.2 no service pad service timestamps debug uptime service timestamps log uptime service password-encryption ! hostname TestSwitch ! enable secret 5 ****************************** ! aaa new-model aaa authentication login default local aaa authorization exec default local ! aaa session-id common clock timezone PST -8 clock summer-time PDT recurring system mtu routing 1500 ip subnet-zero ! ip domain-name domain.com ip igmp snooping tcn query solicit ip igmp snooping querier ! ! no file verify auto spanning-tree mode pvst spanning-tree extend system-id ! vlan internal allocation policy ascending ! interface GigabitEthernet0/1 ! interface GigabitEthernet0/2-24 switchport access vlan 2 ! interface Vlan1 ip address 10.99.16.33 255.255.248.0 no ip route-cache ! ip default-gateway 10.99.16.1 ip http server ip http secure-server snmp-server community public RO radius-server source-ports 1645-1646 ! control-plane ! ! line con 0 line vty 0 4 password 7 ********************** transport input ssh line vty 5 15 ! ntp clock-period 36029036 ntp server 10.99.16.5 end

Reply to
John Oliver

You "dumb" Dell switch probably doesn't run IGMP, and is forwarding your multicast streams to all ports.

Your running an IGMP snooping quierier on the switch, which is using the IP address you have configured on VLAN 1, but your switch ports are in VLAN 2. Can you ping the hosts that are receiving the multicast traffic from the switch? If not, this is why multicast is not working.

Reply to
Thrill5

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