Juniper Networks, Inc.

Venkata Lakshmana Murthy Varahabhotla

Robert W Kebler

Rahul Unnikrishnan

The potential problem of too many unique protocol independent multicast (PIM) joins (corresponding to unique (Source, Group) combinations) in PIM join/prune messages being received by a router may be solved by controlling (e.g., limiting) a number of unique PIM joins to be sent to the router from a downstream device. This may be accomplished, for example, by communicating a limit (or multiple different limits) from a PIM device to one or more downstream PIM neighbors. For example, the limit may be encoded in a PIM Hello message (e.g., as an Option Type-Length-Value (TLV)).

Controlling an aggregate number of unique PIM joins in one or more PIM join/prune messages received from a PIM neighbor

The potential problem of sending (or resending) PIM join/prune messages (referred to as 'PIM join(s)') too infrequently may be solved by: (a) sending a PIM join, including a unique message identifier value, to an upstream PIM peer; (b) responsive to sending the PIM join, (1) starting a quick refresh timer, and (2) starting a standard refresh timer, which is longer than the quick refresh timer; (c) responsive to a determination that the quick refresh timer expired, (1) resending the PIM join to the upstream PIM peer, and (2) restarting the quick refresh timer; (d) responsive to a determination that the standard refresh timer expired, (1) resending the PIM join message to the upstream PIM peer, and (2) restarting the standard refresh timer; (e) receiving a PIM join response from the upstream PIM peer, wherein the PIM join response includes a unique message identifier value; (f) responsive to receiving the PIM join response and determining that the unique message identifier value in the PIM join response matches the unique message identifier value in the PIM join/prune message, stopping the quick refresh timer. The potential problem of sending (or resending) PIM joins too frequently may be solved by having the PIM join response further include a long refresh timer value, and responsive to receiving the PIM join response from the upstream peer, further (1) stopping the standard refresh timer, and (2) starting a long fresh timer using the long refresh timer value, and responsive to determining that the long refresh timer expired, (1) resending the PIM join/prune message to the upstream PIM peer, and (2) restarting the long refresh timer.

Controlling protocol independent multicast (PIM) join/prune messages from a downstream PIM neighbor using a PIM join/prune response(s) from an upstream PIM neighbor

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Herndon, VA, United States of America

Venkata Lakshmana Murthy Varahabhotla