> Chapter 9 - Firewall > Multicast forwarding

Multicast forwarding

Multicasting (also called IP multicasting) consists of using a single multicast source to send data to many receivers. Multicasting can be used to send data to many receivers simultaneously while conserving bandwidth and reducing network traffic. Multicasting can be used for one-way delivery of media streams to multiple receivers and for one-way data transmission for news feeds, financial information, and so on.

Also RIPv2 uses multicasting to share routing table information, OSPF uses multicasting to send hello packets and routing updates, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) uses multicasting to send routing information to all EIGRP routers on a network segment and the Bonjour network service uses multicasting for DNS.

A FortiGate unit can operate as a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) version 2 router. FortiGate units support PIM sparse mode (RFC 4601) and PIM dense mode (RFC 3973) and can service multicast servers or receivers on the network segment to which a FortiGate unit interface is connected. Multicast routing is not supported in transparent mode (TP mode).

To support PIM communications, the sending/receiving applications and all connecting PIM routers in between must be enabled with PIM version 2. PIM can use static routes, RIP, OSPF, or BGP to forward multicast packets to their destinations. To enable source-to-destination packet delivery, either sparse mode or dense mode must be enabled on the PIM-router interfaces. Sparse mode routers cannot send multicast messages to dense mode routers. In addition, if a FortiGate unit is located between a source and a PIM router, two PIM routers, or is connected directly to a receiver, you must create a security policy manually to pass encapsulated (multicast) packets or decapsulated data (IP traffic) between the source and destination.

A PIM domain is a logical area comprising a number of contiguous networks. The domain contains at least one Boot Strap Router (BSR), and if sparse mode is enabled, a number of Rendezvous Points (RPs) and Designated Routers (DRs). When PIM is enabled on a FortiGate unit, the FortiGate unit can perform any of these functions at any time as configured.