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Understanding PIM Snooping for VPLS

There are two ways to direct PIM control packets:

  • By the use of PIM snooping

  • By the use of PIM proxying

PIM snooping configures a device to examine and operate only on PIM hello and join/prune packets. A PIM snooping device snoops PIM hello and join/prune packets on each interface to find interested multicast receivers and populates the multicast forwarding tree with this information. PIM snooping differs from PIM proxying in that both PIM hello and join/prune packets are transparently flooded in the VPLS as opposed to the flooding of only hello packets in the case of PIM proxying. PIM snooping is configured on PE routers connected through pseudowires. PIM snooping ensures that no new PIM packets are generated in the VPLS, with the exception of PIM messages sent through LDP on pseudowires.

Note:

In the VPLS documentation, the word router in terms such as PE router is used to refer to any device that provides routing functions.

A device that supports PIM snooping snoops hello packets received on attachment circuits. It does not introduce latency in the VPLS core when it forwards PIM join/prune packets.

To configure PIM snooping on a PE router, use the pim-snooping statement at the [edit routing-instances instance-name protocols] hierarchy level:

Example: Configuring PIM Snooping for VPLS explains the PIM snooping method. The use of the PIM proxying method is not discussed here and is outside the scope of this document. For more information about PIM proxying, see PIM Snooping over VPLS.