All MacOS kernel are by default capable of sending and receiving multicast datagrams (packets). (So are other kernels in Unix and Linux). However multicasting is not enabled by default. Following are the steps I followed to enable multicast on my Mac (Snow Leopard):

Step 1: Check your network interface supports multicast by running the following command in a terminal window:

$ ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:26:bb:60:a5:0e
media: autoselect status: inactive
supported media: none autoselect 10baseT/UTP <half-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,flow-control> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 100baseTX <half-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control> 100baseTX <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 1000baseT <full-duplex> 1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control> 1000baseT <full-duplex,hw-loopback>
en1: flags=8823<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

Most important line:
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

When you see MULTICAST against your network interface, it means your kernel is complied with Multicast option and your network interface supports it.

Step 2: Check if multicast routing is configured:

$netstat -nr
Routing tables

Internet:

Internet6:

If you don’t see an IP in the range of 224.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255 in the first table, it means you need to add your desired mutlicast address to your routes table.

Step 3: To add the multicast address:

sudo route -nv add -net 228.0.0.4 -interface en0

Make sure you run this command on all servers you want to be multicast enabled.

Step 4: Using netstat check if the multicast IP is visible in your route table

$ netstat -nr
Routing tables

Internet:

…

Step 5: Using tcpdump and ping check if your server is able to multicast.

$ sudo tcpdump -ni en0 host 228.0.0.4
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on en0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes

Run the above command on all the servers.

Run the following command on any one server.

$ ping -t 1 -c 2 228.0.0.4

Now you should see the following line on all the servers that you want multicast enabled.

21:36:01.586800 IP <your_server_ip> > 228.0.0.4: ICMP echo request, id 62506, seq 0, length 64

In future if you want to disable multicast, just drop the IP from Routes Table:

$ sudo route -v delete -inet 228.0.0.4

Multicast over TCP/IP HOWTO is a great reference material if you want to understand Multicast in detail.

Also to enable Multicast on Linux distro refer to: http://www.dancres.org/bjspj/docs/docs/linux.html

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 11:33 PM and is filed under Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.