MLDv2 protocol design, implementation and evaluation for source-specific multicast over IPv6

With the advance of multicast technologies, source-specific multicast (SSM) has been introduced as a feasible communication model. In the IPv6 environment, since many kinds of equipment can be connected to the Internet as regular end-nodes and assume multicast communication in general, considering the scalability proposed by SSM is very valuable. Regarding an SSM communication over IPv6, an implementation of Multicast Listener Discovery version 2 (MLDv2) on every end-node is indispensable as well as on every router. One of the most concerning points of MLDv2 is its complexity, therefore it may delay the SSM deployment due to its implementation cost. In view of this fact, having an effective and accurate MLDv2 reference implementation is urged and desired for multicast deployment. In this document, we illustrate MLDv2 host-side implementation, mainly the most complex Multicast Source Filtering (MSF) procedure, applied to 4.4BSD kernel. While presenting the implementation concept, design, and logic, we evaluate the behaviors of our implementation. In addition, a performance investigation is also mentioned.