MULTICAST ROUTING

Multicast routing allows distributing network traffic from one source to several destinations. The source and destinations will then be placed in a "multicast group".

This type of routing is used for tele-seminar applications (no interaction with recipients), teleconferences (each member of the group can be a traffic source), routing table distribution for the RIPv2 protocol, remote network booting (BOOTP protocol), etc.

IMPORTANT
Static multicast routing has priority over all other types of routing (static routing, dynamic routing, routing in a bridge, policy-based routing, etc).

This button makes it possible to enable or disable multicast static routing.

Actions on multicast routing policy rules in IPv4

The table allows you to define the rules in the multicast routing policy to be applied on the firewall. High-priority rules are placed on top. The firewall executes rules in their order of appearance in the list (rule no. 1, 2 and so on) and stops as soon as it reaches a rule that matches the traffic that it processes.

Add This button allows inserting a line after a selected line; a routing rule creation wizard will then open automatically.
Delete Deletes the selected line.
Move up Places the selected line before the line just above it.
Move down Places the selected line after the line just below it.
Cut Allows you to cut a routing rule in order to move it.
Copy Allows you to copy a routing rule in order to duplicate it.
Paste Allows you to duplicate a routing rule after having copied it.

Interactive features

Some operations listed in the taskbar can be performed by right-clicking on the table of multicast static routes:

  • Add,
  • Delete,
  • Up,
  • Down,
  • Cut,
  • Copy,
  • Paste.

New rule

Step 1: selecting the multicast group and the source interface

Select the multicast object containing allowed multicast IP addresses as well as the multicast traffic source (source interface) for this routing rule.

The multicast group must contain a host, network, IP address range or group containing exclusively multicast IP addresses (within the range 224.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255 inclusive).

Step 2: selecting the destination interfaces

Click on Add to target the destination of the traffic affected by the multicast routing rule. You can add as many destination interfaces as necessary in the rule.

A multicast packet matching the rule (packet originating from an address contained in the multicast group and being presented by one of the declared source interfaces) will be sent to all destination interfaces.

The table

The table sets out the list of static multicast routing rules and their statuses:

Status Status of the static multicast route:
  • Enabled: Double-click to enable the route created.
  • Disabled: The route is not functional.
Source interface Displays the multicast group and the associated source interface in the following form: multicast_group@source_interface.
Destination interfaces Displays the list of destination interfaces of the multicast traffic specified in the routing rule creation wizard.
Comments Displays any comments that may have been entered when the rule was added.