Chapter 29. Multicast Listener Discovery
© Copyright Lenovo 2015
Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) is an IPv6 protocol that a host uses to request
multicast data for a multicast group. An IPv6 router uses MLD to discover the
presence of multicast listeners (nodes that want to receive multicast packets) on its
directly attached links, and to discover specifically the multicast addresses that are
of interest to those neighboring nodes.
MLD version 1 is derived from Internet Group Management Protocol version 2
(IGMPv2) and MLDv2 is derived from IGMPv3. MLD uses ICMPv6 (IP Protocol
58) message types. See RFC 2710 and RFC 3810 for details.
MLDv2 protocol, when compared to MLDv1, adds support for source filtering—
the ability for a node to report interest in listening to packets only from specific
source addresses, or from all but specific source addresses, sent to a particular
multicast address. MLDv2 is interoperable with MLDv1. See RFC 3569 for details
on Source‐Specific Multicast (SSM).
The following topics are discussed in this chapter:
"MLD Terms" on page 402
"How MLD Works" on page 403
"MLD Capacity and Default Values" on page 406
"Configuring MLD" on page 407
401