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Multicast Source Discovery Protocol

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Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) is a computer network protocol in the Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) family of multicast routing protocols.

MSDP interconnects multiple IPv4 PIM Sparse-Mode (PIM-SM) domains. This enables PIM-SM to have Rendezvous Point (RP) redundancy and inter-domain multicasting. It is defined by Experimental RFC 3618.

Each multicast tree has to have its own RP. All of the RPs are peers (directly or through other MSDP peers). Messages contain Source of Data, Group Address The Data Source Sends To (S,G).

If an RP on its own domain receives a message it determines if there are group members on this domain interested in a multicast. If someone is interested it triggers a join towards the data source (into the source domain) in the way of (S, G).


From the RFC 3618 - MSDP uses TCP as its transport protocol. In a peering relationship,one MSDP peer listens for new TCP connections on the well-known port 639