A router-assisted session tree configuration mechanism for reliable multicast

A session tree based mechanism provides an efficient method to avoid well-known feedback implosion. However, it is not easy to configure an efficient session tree for IP multicast because it does not provide any explicit membership and routing topology information to the upper layer protocol. Incongruity between a session tree built on the transport layer and the corresponding routing tree on the network layer would incur large cost to handle control messages. This problem can be solved if a router that knows the information of routing topology can support the configuration of a session tree. Thus this letter proposed a router-assistant mechanism which minimizes the change of router functions and allows the routers to assist in providing a reliable multicast transport service.