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You should be able to retrieve the latest version of the MBONE FAQ atftp://isi.edu/mbone/faq.txt.Below is an HTML-formatted version of the FAQ from August 15, 1994. The text-only version of this file is also available. A more up-to-date (but separate) HTML version of this FAQ can be found at
http://www.research.att.com/mbone-faq.html.
This file is ftp.isi.edu:mbone/faq.txt
Corrections and Additions Requested
Note: This file has badly needed updating since the 6-May-93 version. Some of the most glaring errors have been fixed here, but more rewriting is required. It is also intended that this text form and an HTML form will be generated from a common source. Some other sources of info are:
What is the MBONE?
The MBONE is an outgrowth of the first two IETF "audiocast" experiments in which live audio and video were multicast from the IETF meeting site to destinations around the world. The idea is to construct a semi-permanent IP multicast testbed to carry the IETF transmissions and support continued experimentation between meetings. This is a cooperative, volunteer effort.
The MBONE is a virtual network. It is layered on top of portions of the physical Internet to support routing of IP multicast packets since that function has not yet been integrated into many production routers. The network is composed of islands that can directly support IP multicast, such as multicast LANs like Ethernet, linked by virtual point-to-point links called "tunnels". The tunnel endpoints are typically workstation-class machines having operating system support for IP multicast and running the "mrouted" multicast routing daemon.
Previous versions of the IP multicast software (before March 1993) used a different method of encapsulation based on an IP Loose Source and Record Route option. This method remains an option in the new software for backward compatibility with nodes that have not been upgraded. In this mode, the multicast router modifies the packet by appending an IP LSRR option to the packet's IP header. The multicast destination address is moved into the source route, and the unicast address of the router at the far end of the tunnel is placed in the IP Destination Address field. The presence of IP options, including LSRR, may cause modern router hardware to divert the tunnel packets through a slower software processing path, causing poor performance. Therefore, use of the new software and the IP encapsulation method is strongly encouraged.
Between continents there will probably be only one or two tunnels, preferably terminating at the closest point on the MBONE mesh. In the US, this may be on the Ethernets at the two FIXes (Federal Internet eXchanges) in California and Maryland. But since the FIXes are fairly busy, it will be important to minimize the number of tunnels that cross them. This may be accomplished using IP multicast directly (rather than tunnels) to connect several multicast routers on the FIX Ethernet.
The intent is that when a new regional network wants to join in, they will make a request on the appropriate MBONE list, then the participants at "close" nodes will answer and cooperate in setting up the ends of the appropriate tunnels. To keep fanout down, sometimes this will mean breaking an existing tunnel to inserting a new node, so three sites will have to work together to set up the tunnels.
To know which nodes are "close" will require knowledge of both the MBONE logical map and the underlying physical network topology, for example, the physical T3 NSFnet backbone topology map combined with the network providers' own knowledge of their local topology.
Within a regional network, the network's own staff can independently manage the tunnel fanout hierarchy in conjunction with end-user participants. New end-user networks should contact the network provider directly, rather than the MBONE list, to get connected.
Note that the design bandwidth must be multiplied by the number of tunnels passing over any given link since each tunnel carries a separate copy of each packet. This is why the fanout of each mrouted node should be no more than 5-10 and the topology should be designed so that at most 1 or 2 tunnels flow over any T1 line.
While most MBONE nodes should connect with lines of at least T1 speed, it will be possible to carry restricted traffic over slower speed lines. Each tunnel has an associated threshold against which the packet's IP time-to-live (TTL) value is compared. By convention in the IETF multicasts, higher bandwidth sources such as video transmit with a smaller TTL so they can be blocked while lower bandwidth sources such as compressed audio are allowed through.
It is best if the workstations can be dedicated to the multicast routing function to avoid interference from other activities and so there will be no qualms about installing kernel patches or new code releases on short notice. Since most MBONE nodes other than endpoints will have at least three tunnels, and each tunnel carries a separate (unicast) copy of each packet, it is also useful, though not required, to have multiple network interfaces on the workstation so it can be installed parallel to the unicast router for those sites with configurations like this:
(The "DMZ" Ethernets borrow that military term to describe their role as interface points between networks and machines controlled by different entities.) This configuration allows the mrouted machine to connect with tunnels to other regional networks over the external DMZ and the physical backbone network, and connect with tunnels to the lower-level mrouted machines over the internal DMZ, thereby splitting the load of the replicated packets. (The mrouted machine would not do any unicast forwarding.)
Note that end-user sites may participate with as little as one workstation that runs the packet audio and video software and has a tunnel to a network-provider node.
To set up and run an mrouted machine will require the knowledge to build and install operating system kernels. If you would like to use a hardware platform other than those currently supported, then you might also contribute some software implementation skills!
We will depend on participants to read mail on the appropriate mbone mailing list and respond to requests from new networks that want to join and are "nearby" to coordinate the installation of new tunnel links. Similarly, when customers of the network provider make requests for their campus nets or end systems to be connected to the MBONE, new tunnel links will need to be added from the network provider's multicast routers to the end systems (unless the whole network runs MOSPF).
Part of the resources that should be committed to participate would be for operations staff to be aware of the role of the multicast routers and the nature of multicast traffic, and to be prepared to disable multicast forwarding if excessive traffic is found to be causing trouble. The potential problem is that any site hooked into the MBONE could transmit packets that cover the whole MBONE, so if it became popular as a "chat line", all available bandwidth could be consumed. Steve Deering plans to implement multicast route pruning so that packets only flow over those links necessary to reach active receivers; this will reduce the traffic level. This problem should be manageable through the same measures we already depend upon for stable operation of the Internet, but MBONE participants should be aware of it.
There is an interested group at DEC that may get the software running on newer DEC systems with Ultrix and OSF/1. Also, some people have asked about support for the RS-6000 and AIX or other platforms. Those interested could use the mbone list to coordinate collaboration on porting the software to these platforms!
An alternative to running mrouted is to run the experimental MOSPF software in a Proteon router (see MOSPF question below).
You don't need kernel sources to add multicast support. Included in the distributions are files (sources or binaries, depending upon the system) to modify your BSD, SunOS, or Ultrix kernel to support IP multicast, including the mrouted program and special multicast versions of ping and netstat.
Silicon Graphics includes IP multicast as a standard part of their operating system. The mrouted executable and ip_mroute kernel module are not installed by default; you must install the eoe2.sw.ipgate subsystem and "autoconfig" the kernel to be able to act as a multicast router. In the IRIX 4.0.x release, there is a bug in the kernel code that handles multicast tunnels; an unsupported fix is available via anonymous ftp from sgi.com in the sgi/ipmcast directory. See the README there for details on installing it.
IP multicast is also included in all Solaris 2 releases. Solaris 2.3 out of the box supports the non-pruning version of mrouted (mrouted version 2.0-2.2), but mrouted is not included with Solaris so you must fetch the mrouted sources from the multicast software distribution and compile them. Solaris 2.2 requires patches to run mrouted, available from ftp.uoregon.edu in the directory /pub/Solaris2.x/src/MBONE/Solaris2.x/Kernel.
IP multicast is supported in BSD 4.4.
The most common problem encountered when running this software is with hosts that respond incorrectly to IP multicasts. These responses typically take the form of ICMP network unreachable, redirect, or time-exceeded error messages, which are a waste of bandwidth and can cause an error in the packet send operation executed by a multicast source. The result may be dropouts in an audio or video stream. These responses are in violation of the current IP specification and, with luck, will disappear over time.
Multicast routing algorithms are described in the paper "Multicast Routing in Internetworks and Extended LANs" by S. Deering, in the Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM '88 Conference. His dissertation Multicast Routing in a Datagram Network is available: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
There is an article in the June 1992 ConneXions about the first IETF audiocast from San Diego, and a later version of that article is in the July 1992 ACM SIGCOMM CCR. A reprint of the latter article is available by anonymous FTP from venera.isi.edu in the file pub/ietf-audiocast-article.ps. There is no article yet about later IETF audio/videocasts.
The small one fits on one page but is hard to read, and the big one is four pages that have to be taped together for viewing. This map was produced from topology information collected automatically from all MBONE nodes that respond to remote queries for mapping information (some are running ancient versions of mrouted that do not respond, and some are hidden by firewalls or routing boundaries). Pavel Curtis at Xerox PARC has added the mechanisms to automatically collect the map data and produce the map. (Thanks also to Paul Zawada of NCSA who manually produced an earlier map of the MBONE.)
The MBONE is now large enough that it is hard to show all nodes and links on one graph. To give a higher level view of the MBONE, there is another map that shows only the major links and nodes in a roughly geographical representation that was created manually by Steve Casner. It is available from ftp.isi.edu:
The advantages to linking DVMRP with MOSPF are: fewer configured tunnels, and less multicast traffic on the links inside the MOSPF domain. There are also a couple potential drawbacks: increasing the size of DVMRP routing messages, and increasing the number of external routes in the OSPF systems. However, it should be possible to alleviated these drawbacks by configuring area address ranges and by judicious use of MOSPF default routing.
If you are a network povider, send a message to the -request address of the mailing list for your country to be added to that list for purposes of coordinating setup of tunnels, etc:
If your country is not listed, send your request to the appropriate regional sublist:
These lists are primarily aimed at network providers who would be the top level of the MBONE organizational and topological hierarchy. The mailing list is also a hierarchy; mbone@isi.edu forwards to the regional lists, then those lists include expanders for network providers and other institutions. Mail of general interest should be sent to mbone@isi.edu, while regional topology questions should be sent to the appropriate regional list.
Individual networks may also want to set up their own lists for their customers to request connection of campus mrouted machines to the network's mrouted machines. Some that have done so were listed above.
The phyint command can be used to disable multicast routing on the physical interface identified by local IP address
The tunnel command can be used to establish a tunnel link between local IP address
The metric is the "cost" associated with sending a datagram on the given interface or tunnel; it may be used to influence the choice of routes. The metric defaults to 1. Metrics should be kept as small as possible, because mrouted cannot route along paths with a sum of metrics greater than 31. It is recommended that the metric of all links be set to 1 unless you are specifically trying to force traffic to take another path. On such a "backup tunnel", the metric should be the sum of metrics on primary path + 1.
The threshold is the minimum IP time-to-live required for a multicast datagram to be forwarded to the given interface or tunnel. It is used to control the scope of multicast datagrams. (The TTL of forwarded packets is only compared to the threshold, it is not decremented by the threshold. Every multicast router decrements the TTL by 1.) The default threshold is 1.
Since the multicast routing protocol implemented by mrouted does not yet prune the multicast delivery trees based on group membership (it does something called "truncated broadcast", in which it prunes only the leaf subnets off the broadcast trees), we instead use a kludge known as "TTL thresholds" to prevent multicasts from traveling along unwanted branches. This is NOT the way IP multicast is supposed to work; MOSPF does it right, and mrouted will do it right some day.
Before the November 1992 IETF we established the following thresholds. The "TTL" column specifies the originating IP time-to-live value to be used by each application. The "thresh" column specifies the mrouted threshold required to permit passage of packets from the corresponding application, as well as packets from all applications above it in the table:
It is suggested that a threshold of 128 be used initially, and then raise it to 160 or 192 only if the 64 Kb/s voice is excessive (GSM voice is about 18 Kb/s), or lower it to 64 to allow video to be transmitted to the tunnel.
Mrouted will not initiate execution if it has fewer than two enabled vifs, where a vif (virtual interface) is either a physical multicast-capable interface or a tunnel. It will log a warning if all of its vifs are tunnels, based on the reasoning that such an mrouted configuration would be better replaced by more direct tunnels (i.e., eliminate the middle man). However, to create a hierarchical fanout for the MBONE, we will have mrouted configurations that consist only of tunnels.
Once you have edited the mrouted.conf file, you must run mrouted as root. See ipmulticast.README for more information.
For the camera, any camcorder with a video output will do. The wide-angle range is most important for monitor-top mounting. There is also a small (about 2x2x5 inches) monochrome CCD camera suitable for desktop video conference applications available for around $200 from Stanley Howard Associates, Thousand Oaks, CA, phone 805-492-4842. Subjectively, it seems to give a picture somewhat less crisp than a typical camcorder, but sufficient for 320x240 resolution software video algorithms. There is also a color model and an infrared one for low light, with an IR LED for illumination.
IP multicast is included in the standard IRIX kernels for SGI machines, in Solaris 2.3 and later, and in OSF/1 2.0. You can pick up free IP multicast software and add it to AIX 3.2, HP-UX, SunOS 4.1.x and Ultrix as described above. For PC machines running DOS or Windows, IP multicast support is included in the current release of the PCTCP package from FTP Software, but the application programs are still in development. No IP multicast support is available yet for NeXT or Macintosh.
The IP multicast kernel software releases for AIX, HP-UX, SunOS, and Ultrix include a patch for the module in_pcb.c. This patch allows demultiplexing of separate multicast addresses so that multiple copies of vat can be run for different conferences at the same time.
If you run a SunOS 4.1.x kernel, you should make sure that the kernel audio buffer size variable is patched from the standard value of 1024 to be 160 decimal to match the audio packet size for minimum delay. The IP multicast software release includes patched versions of the audio driver modules, but if for some reason you can't use them, you can use adb to patch the kernel as shown below. These instructions are for SunOS 4.1.1 and 4.1.2; change the variable name to amd_bsize for 4.1.3, or Dbri_recv_bsize for the SPARC 10:
If the buffer size is incorrect, there will be bad breakup when sound from two sites gets mixed for playback.
For the slow-frame-rate video prevalent on the MBONE, the compression, decompression and display are all done in software. The data rate is typically 25-128 Kb/s, with the maximum established by a bandwidth limit slider. Higher data rates may be used with a small TTL to keep the traffic within the local area. Support for hardware compression boards is in development.
Included in the vat tar files are a binary and a manual entry. The authors, Van Jacobson and Steve McCanne, say the source will be released "soon". Either SPARC version will run SunOS 4.1.x. The dynamically linked version works better than the statically linked version on Solaris 2 since it will adhere to the name service policy that the user has configured. There is a problem with vat in unicast mode on Solaris 2.3 (it works fine in multicast mode). This will be fixed in the next Solaris release. In the mean time, there is a work around for the problem available by FTP from playground.sun.com in the tar file pub/solaris2/unicast-vat-workaround.tar.
In addition, a beta release of both binary and source for the UMass audio tool NEVOT, written by Henning Schulzrinne, is available by anonymous FTP from gaia.cs.umass.edu in the pub/hgschulz/nevot directory (the filename may change from version to version). NEVOT runs on the SPARCstation and on the SGI Indigo and Indy. NEVOT supports both the vat protocol and RTP protocol.
For the November 1992 IETF and several events since then, we have used two other programs. The first is the "nv" (network video) program from Ron Frederick at Xerox PARC, available from parcftp.xerox.com in the file pub/net-research/nv.tar.Z. An 8-bit visual is recommended to see the full image resolution, but nv also implements dithering of the image for display on 1-bit visuals (monochrome displays). Shared memory will be used if present for reduced processor load, but display to remote X servers is also possible. On the SPARCstation, the VideoPix card is required to originate video. Sources are to available, as are binary versions for the SGI Indigo and DEC 5000 platforms.
Also available from INRIA is the IVS program written by Thierry Turletti and Christian Huitema. It uses a more sophisticated compression algorithm, a software implementation of the H.261 standard. It produces a lower data rate, but because of the processing demands the frame rate is much lower and the delay higher. System requirements: SUN SPARCstation or SGI Indigo, video grabber (VideoPix Card for SPARCstations), video camera, X-Windows with Motif or Tk toolkit. Binaries and sources are available for anonymous ftp from avahi.inria.fr in the file pub/videoconference/ivs.tar.Z or ivs_binary_sparc.tar.Z.
Schedules for IETF audio/videocasts and some other events are announced on the IETF mailing list (send a message to ietf-request@cnri.reston.va.us to join). Some events are also announced on the rem-conf mailing list, along with discussions of protocols for remote conferencing (send a message to rem-conf-request@es.net to join).
IP multicast host extensions are being added to some vendors' operating systems. That's one of the first steps. Proteon has announced IP multicast support in their routers. No network provider is offering production IP multicast service yet.
For those with SPARCs running SunOS, upgrade first to 4.1.3 or 4.1.3_U1 if you haven't already, and get a fresh copy of the kernel build tree (i.e., no older multicast patches or other source modifications applied). Then get the 3.3 multicast distribution from one of the following sites
ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/net-research/ipmulti3.3-sunos413x.tar.Z
ftp://louie.udel.edu/pub/people/ajit/ipmulti3.3-sunos413x.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.adelaide.edu.au/pub/av/multicast/ipmulti3.3-sunos413x.tar.Z
and untar it in a convenient place. (Yes, I know the FAQ says the multicast releases are kept on gregorio, but the folks who made this release didn't follow previous practice and put it there.) Then get
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/mbone/mcast_install
and use it to apply the multicast extensions to the fresh kernel tree. Answer yes when it asks about inclusion of RSVP_ISI because the object-only modules were compiled that way and the link will fail if you don't. The script should take care of installing the new 3.3 mrouted for you as well as building the kernel, if you let it. The audio buffer size patch is already included so you don't need to do it manually. I think that is pretty easy.
The potential hitch in this process is if there are Sun object patches you want to apply which conflict with object modules included in the multicast distribution. To note a couple, the "panic:mfree" fix is included in ip_icmp.o and the fix for "applications bind to same port if IP address supplied" is included in in_pcb.o. The subsequent patch for ICMP spoofing is not included in ip_icmp.o, but sources for that fix have been merged into the multicast version, and it will be in the next release of multicast code.
For those who run Solaris, sorry you can't run mrouted 3.3 yet until Sun releases a new version of Solaris that includes the new functions in the kernel. You should be running mrouted 2.2 rather than 2.0 (see why below) which maybe obtained from several places including
ftp://ftp.ucs.ed.ac.uk/pub/videoconference/mrouted/
files mrouted.tar.Z and mrouted.2.2.solaris-patch
For those of you running other platforms, we've heard of 3.3 ports being underway, but no reports of available code yet, sorry. You should also be running mrouted 2.2 if your kernel's multicast code is based on the 2.0 non-pruning multicast release, or mrouted 3.2 if your kernel code is based on the 3.1 pruning multicast release.
2.2: ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/mrouted-2.2/mrouted.tar.Z (or as above from uk)
3.2: ftp://louie.udel.edu/pub/people/ajit/mrouted.3.2b.tar.gz
It is important to run the x.2 versions which can sort the unsorted DVMRP routing updates produced by cisco PIM routers. Otherwise corrupted routing may be passed along to neighboring mrouteds! The x.2 versions also spread out the routing update packets to reduce the impact of accidental routing table explosions.
How do IP multicast tunnels work?
IP multicast packets are encapsulated for transmission through tunnels, so that they look like normal unicast datagrams to intervening routers and subnets. A multicast router that wants to send a multicast packet across a tunnel will prepend another IP header, set the destination address in the new header to be the unicast address of the multicast router at the other end of the tunnel, and set the IP protocol field in the new header to be 4 (which means the next protocol is IP). The multicast router at the other end of the tunnel receives the packet, strips off the encapsulating IP header, and forwards the packet as appropriate.
What is the topology of the MBONE?
We anticipate that within a continent, the MBONE topology will be a combination of mesh and star: the backbone and regional (or mid-level) networks will be linked by a mesh of tunnels among mrouted machines located primarily at interconnection points of the backbones and regionals. Some redundant tunnels may be configured with higher metrics for robustness. Then each regional network will have a star hierarchy hanging off its node of the mesh to fan out and connect to all the customer networks that want to participate.
How is the MBONE topology going to be set up and coordinated?
The primary reason we set up the MBONE e-mail lists (see below) was to coordinate the top levels of the topology (the mesh of links among the backbones and regionals). This must be a cooperative project combining knowledge distributed among the participants, somewhat like Usenet. The goal is to avoid loading any one individual with the responsibility of designing and managing the whole topology, though perhaps it will be necessary to periodically review the topology to see if corrections are required.
What is the anticipated traffic level?
The traffic anticipated during IETF multicasts is 100-300Kb/s, so 500Kb/s seems like a reasonable design bandwidth. Between IETF meetings, most of the time there will probably be no audio or video traffic, though some of the background session/control traffic may be present. A guess at the peak level of experimental use might be 5 simultaneous voice conversations (64Kb/s each). Clearly, with enough simultaneous conversations, we could exceed any bandwidth number, but 500Kb/s seems reasonable for planning.
Why should I (a network provider) participate?
To allow your customers to participate in IETF audiocasts and other experiments in packet audio/video, and to gain experience with IP multicasting for a relatively low cost.
What technical facilities and equipment are required for a network provider to join the MBONE?
Each network-provider participant in the MBONE provides one or more IP multicast routers to connect with tunnels to other participants and to customers. The multicast routers are typically separate from a network's production routers since most production routers don't yet support IP multicast. Most sites use workstations running the mrouted program, but the experimental MOSPF software for Proteon routers is an alternative (see MOSPF question below).
+----------+
| Backbone |
| Node |
+----------+
|
------------------------------------------ External DMZ Ethernet
| |
+----------+ +----------+
| Router | | mrouted |
+----------+ +----------+
| |
------------------------------------------ Internal DMZ Ethernet
What skills are needed to participate and how much time might have to be devoted to this?
The person supporting a network's participation in the MBONE should have the skills of a network engineer, but a fairly small percentage of that person's time should be required. Activities requiring this skill level would be choosing a topology for multicast distribution with in the provider's network and analyzing traffic flow when performance problems are identified.
Which workstation platforms can support the mrouted program?
The most convenient platform is a Sun SPARCstation simply because that is the machine used for mrouted development. An older machine (such as a SPARC-1 or IPC) will provide satisfactory performance as long as the tunnel fanout is kept in the 5-10 range. The platforms for which software is available:
Machines Operating Systems Network Interfaces
-------- ----------------- ------------------
Sun SPARC SunOS 4.1.1,2,3 ie, le, lo
Vax or Microvax 4.3+ or 4.3-tahoe de, qe, lo
Decstation 3100,5000 Ultrix 3.1c, 4.1, 4.2a ln, se, lo
Silicon Graphics All ship with multicast
Where can I get the IP multicast software and mrouted program?
The IP multicast software is available by anonymous FTP from the vmtp-ip directory on host gregorio.stanford.edu. Here's a snapshot of the files:
ipmulti-pmax31c.tar
ipmulti-sunos41x.tar.Z Binaries & patches for SunOS 4.1.1,2,3
ipmulticast-ultrix4.1.patch
ipmulticast-ultrix4.2a-binary.tar
ipmulticast-ultrix4.2a.patch
ipmulticast.README [** Warning: out of date **]
ipmulticast.tar.Z Sources for BSD
What documentation is available?
Documentation on the IP multicast software is included in the distribution on gregorio.stanford.edu (ipmulticast.README). A more up-to-date version is at AT&T. RFC1112 specifies the "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting".
Where can I get a map of the MBONE?
The most recent "complete" map of the MBONE is available in two Postscript files are available on parcftp.xerox.com:
What is DVMRP?
DVMRP is the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol; it is the routing protocol implemented by the mrouted program. An earlier version of DVMRP is specified in RFC-1075. However, the version implemented in mrouted is quite a bit different from what is specified in that RFC (different packet format, different tunnel format, additional packet types, and more). It maintains topological knowledge via a distance-vector routing protocol (like RIP, described in RFC-1058), upon which it implements a multicast forwarding algorithm called Truncated Reverse Path Broadcasting. DVMRP suffers from the well-known scaling problems of any distance-vector routing protocol.
What is MOSPF?
MOSPF is the IP multicast extension to the OSPF routing protocol, currently an Internet Draft. John Moy has implemented MOSPF for the Proteon router. A network of routers running MOSPF can forward IP multicast packets directly, sending no more than one copy over any link, and without the need for any tunnels. This is how IP multicasting within a domain is supposed to work.
Can MOSPF and DVMRP interoperate?
At the Boston IETF, John Moy agreed to add support for DVMRP to his MOSPF implementation. He hopes to have this completed "well in advance of the next IETF". When it is finished, you will be able to set up a DVMRP tunnel from an mrouted to Proteon a router, glueing together the DVMRP with MOSPF domains (the MOSPF domains will look pretty like ethernets to the multicast topology).
AlterNet ops@uunet.uu.net
CA*net canet-eng@canet.ca
CERFnet mbone@cerf.net
CICNet mbone@cic.net
CONCERT mbone@concert.net
Cornell swb@nr-tech.cit.cornell.edu
JvNCnet multicast@jvnc.net
Los Nettos prue@isi.edu
NCAR mbone@ncar.ucar.edu
NCSAnet mbone@cic.net
NEARnet nearnet-eng@nic.near.net
OARnet oarnet-mbone@oar.net
ONet onet-eng@onet.on.ca
PSCnet pscnet-admin@psc.edu
PSInet mbone@nisc.psi.net
SESQUINET sesqui-tech@sesqui.net
SDSCnet mbone@sdsc.edu
Sprintlink mbone@sprintlink.net
SURAnet multicast@sura.net
UNINETT mbone-no@uninett.no
Australia: mbone-oz-request@internode.com.au
Austria: mbone-at-request@noc.aco.net
Canada: canet-mbone-request@canet.ca
Denmark: mbone-request@daimi.aau.dk
Germany: mbone-de-request@informatik.uni-erlangen.de
Italy: mbone-it-request@nis.garr.it
Japan: mbone-jp-request@wide.ad.jp
Korea: mbone-korea-request@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr
Netherlands: mbone-nl-request@nic.surfnet.nl
New Zealand: mbone-nz-request@waikato.ac.nz
Singapore: mbone-sg-request@technet.sg
UK: mbone-uk-request@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Europe: mbone-eu-request@sics.se
N. America: mbone-na-request@isi.edu
other: mbone-request@isi.edu
How is a tunnel configured?
Mrouted automatically configures itself to forward on all multicast-capable interfaces, i.e. interfaces that have the IFF_MULTICAST flag set (excluding the loopback "interface"), and it finds other mrouteds directly reachable via those interfaces. To override the default configuration, or to add tunnel links to other mrouteds, configuration commands may be placed in /etc/mrouted.conf. There are two types of configuration command:
phyint
TTL thresh
--- ------
IETF chan 1 low-rate GSM audio 255 224
IETF chan 2 low-rate GSM audio 223 192
IETF chan 1 PCM audio 191 160
IETF chan 2 PCM audio 159 128
IETF chan 1 video 127 96
IETF chan 2 video 95 64
local event audio 63 32
local event video 31 1
What hardware platforms support the audio and video applications?
Most of the applications have been ported to the DEC 5000, DEC Alpha, HP 9000/700, SGI Indy and Indigo, and Sun SPARCstation. Some applications are also supported on IBM RS/6000 and on Intel 486 platforms running BSD UNIX. No additional hardware is required to receive audio and video on those systems that have audio built in because the rest is done in software. To send audio requires a microphone; to send video requires a camera and video capture device which are only built-in on a few of the systems. For example, the VideoPix card has been used on the SPARC, but is no longer for sale. The newer SunVideo card is supported under Solaris 2.x, but there is no device driver for SunOS 4.1.x (at least not yet). See the descriptions of video applications below for a list of the capture boards supported by each program.
What operating system support is required?
You can run the audio and video applications point-to-point between two hosts using normal unicast addresses and routing, but to conference with multiple hosts, each host must run an operating system kernel with IP multicast support. IP multicast invokes Ethernet multicast to reach multiple hosts on the same subnet; to link multiple local subnets or to connect to the MBONE you need a multicast router as described above.
adb -k -w /vmunix /dev/mem
audio_79C30_bsize/W 0t160 (to patch the running kernel)
audio_79C30_bsize?W 0t160 (to patch kernel file on disk)
<Ctrl-D>
What is the data rate produced by the audio and video applications?
The audio coding provided by the built-in audio hardware on most systems produces 64 Kb/s PCM audio, which consumes 68-78 Kb/s on the network with packet overhead. The audio applications implement software compression for reduced data rates (36 Kb/s ADPCM, 17 Kb/s GSM, and 9 Kb/s LPC including overhead).
Where can I get the audio applications?
decalpha-vat.tar.Z DEC Alpha
decmips-vat.tar.Z DEC 5000
hp-vat.tar.Z HP 9000/700
i386-vat.tar.Z intel 386/486 BSD
sgi-vat.tar.Z SGI Indy, Indigo
sun-vat.dyn.tar.Z SPARC, dynamic libraries
sun-vat.tar.Z SPARC, static libraries
What hardware and software is required to receive video?
The video we used for the July 1992 IETF was the DVC (desktop video conferencing) program from BBN, written by Paul Milazzo and Bob Clements. This program has since become a product, called PictureWindow. Contact picwin-sales@bbn.com for more information.
How can I find out about teleconference events?
Many of the audio and video transmissions over the MBONE are advertised in "sd", the session directory tool developed by Van Jacobson at LBL. Session creators specify all the address parameters necessary to join the session, then sd multicasts the advertisement to be picked up by anyone else running sd. The audio and video programs can be invoked with the right parameters by clicking a button in sd. From ftp.ee.lbl.gov, get the file sd.tar.Z or sgi-sd.tar.Z or dec-sd.tar.Z.
Have there been any movements towards productizing any of this?
The network infrastructure will require resource management mechanisms to provide low delay service to real-time applications on any significant scale. That will take a few years. Until that time, product-level robustness won't be possible. However, vendors are certainly interested in these applications, and products may be targeted initially to LAN operation.
How to install the multicast release 3.3 code?
From Steve Casner: casner@isi.edu
This FAQ was formatted into HTML, incorporating some links from the AT&T FAQ, by Kevin Hughes, September 20, 1994. If you have questions, please contact or email Vinay Kumar (vinay@mbone.com).
Sponsored by ICAST Communications, Inc.