[ale] found this from dmesg

[Keith Hopkins]

miguel wrote:
> Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
> 
> what does this message really mean? 

It means the kernel code which routes multicast IP packets is initializing.

If you speak 'C', go take a look at net/ipv4/ipmr.c in the kernel source.

Most IP traffic is unicast; that is once source node, and one destination node.

Multicast is like "broadcast", one source, many destinations.  It is most often used for audio and/or video broadcasts (see MBone).

more reading:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1812.html
5.3.10 Multicast Routing

    An IP router SHOULD support forwarding of IP multicast packets, based
    either on static multicast routes or on routes dynamically determined
    by a multicast routing protocol (e.g., DVMRP [ROUTE:9]).  A router
    that forwards IP multicast packets is called a multicast router.

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Multicast-HOWTO-1.html
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1112.html

-- 
Lost in Tokyo,
   Keith



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