Subject: Public needs multicast tools for Linux

From: Ross Golder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:54:37 +0100

Everywhere I look, I find all the usual mbone tools for Linux are
compiled in 96/97 against dynamic libraries such as libc.so.4 !? I can't
seem to recompile them from source, for various reasons. For example,
'mrouted' throws up errors related to missing header files and such.

So, my questions are :-

1) Where can I get some recent Linux v2 binaries/compilable source for
things like 'mrouted', 'sdr' and 'vic/vat'? Preferably glibc compatible.

2) Assuming I can get mrouted to work, how can I join multicast groups
from my fixed-address ISDN dial-up? Do I need to open/close a tunnel
each time I bring the line up?

If the answer to 1) is 'you can't', is there anyone out there interested
in discussing what would be required to get these tools up-to-date.  If
it's discussed in simple enough terms, with enough references, I should
be able to pick up enough to do something. I'd be willing to provide
services (mail list/web site/CVS etc) for such a project, if anyone else
is interested.

My motivation for this is so that other low-budget users like me,
without a corporate budget and/or a Solaris machine handy can take
advantage of MBone broadcasts. I run Linux via ISDN from my home office,
and have been interested in getting some kind of Mbone feed for ages. My
ISP (Nildram) is v cool IMO, but they don't have a feed. They used to,
but if I recall they found that none of their customers used it so they
dropped it.

--
Ross, finally learning about multicast.

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From: [email-masked] (Jeremy Hall)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 07:55:21 -0400 (EDT)

Hi,

I have gotten all sorts of mbone crap to compile after a bit of fighting
with tcl and tk on their silly little requirements, and I do remember
getting vic, vat, rat, and nv? was it? to compile.

Some time ago, I sent out a note concerning how to compile mrouted with
glibc.  I specifically remember having to edit some header file and I
notified GNU of their deficiency.  It's not too terribly bad, it just
takes time.

I am not sure I understand your second question, but if it is a fixed
address, you'll want to fire up mrouted when your link comes up.  Then,
mrouted will likely nail your link up.  You may end up fighting a losing
battle with mrouted because of the flood-and-prune effect.  The solution I
found to be most effective was to use a 2500 at my end and run pim-sm over
the link. This provided the best answer after fighting for weeks over the
issue.

_J

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From: Ross Golder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:25:29 +0100

> notified GNU of their deficiency.  It's not too terribly bad, it just

I'm following some instructions by Julian Highfield, but still having a
few problems.

> battle with mrouted because of the flood-and-prune effect.  

Fair enough. I'd anticipated controlling the link manually anyway.

> The solution I

A 2500? Cisco router? Expensive, aren't they. I mean more than your
average home user's budget.

--
Ross

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From: Mark Handley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:35:14 -0400

>things like 'mrouted', 'sdr' and 'vic/vat'? Preferably glibc compatible.

You can get sdr and rat binaries from
  http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/
Source for most tools is there too.

>each time I bring the line up?

That depends on whether packets will bring the ISDN line up.  If they
will, then you need to take down mrouted at the end that demand-dials
when you're not using the Mbone.  If there's no demand dialing, you
could leave it up, but I wouldn't recommend it on such a narrow pipe.

>advantage of MBone broadcasts.

The most stable Mbone platform right now is FreeBSD 2.2.7.  It costs
the same as linux, has a better audio driver (for conferencing
purposes), and better support from the Mbone community because most of
us use it for tool development.  Plus the Linux emulation lets me run
almost all Linux tools for which there aren't FreeBSD binaries
available, such as netscape.

Cheers,
	Mark

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 21:10:05 +0200

In message <[email-masked]>, Jeremy Hall writes:
  The solution I
> the link. This provided the best answer after fighting for weeks over the

A simler solution would be to run pim-sm directly on your Linux machine
(requires a 2.1.* kernel though).

/Håkan

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e-mail: [email-masked] |
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From: [email-masked] (Jeremy Hall)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 15:38:27 -0400 (EDT)

OOO does it work now?

lol

will have to try it.

bet I won't be able to get MBGP, MSDP, and some IGP to work though.

_J

[email-masked] said:
[Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, skipping...]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 22:10:45 +0200

> bet I won't be able to get MBGP, MSDP, and some IGP to work though.

Oops. Maybe I'm saying too much :-)
I have no personal experience (yet), 
but I know of one person who has it up and running.

Regards

/Håkan

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From: Magnus Danielson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 23:09:30 +0200

>>>>> "RG" == Ross Golder <[email-masked]> writes:

 RG> Everywhere I look, I find all the usual mbone tools for Linux are
 RG> compiled in 96/97 against dynamic libraries such as libc.so.4 !? I can't
 RG> seem to recompile them from source, for various reasons. For example,
 RG> 'mrouted' throws up errors related to missing header files and such.

 RG> So, my questions are :-

 RG> 1) Where can I get some recent Linux v2 binaries/compilable source for
 RG> things like 'mrouted', 'sdr' and 'vic/vat'? Preferably glibc compatible.

sdr, vat and rat is available in the Debian Linux distribution.

 RG> 2) Assuming I can get mrouted to work, how can I join multicast groups
 RG> from my fixed-address ISDN dial-up? Do I need to open/close a tunnel
 RG> each time I bring the line up?

There's a nifty option in mrouted which will let you have one end of
the tunnel in a passive mode, so as soon as you fire up mrouted on
your home box the tunnel will be activated. This is available in
mrouted 3.9 (you know, the mrouted missing SNMP).

Cheers,
Magnus

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From: Ross Golder <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:48:15 +0100

> sdr, vat and rat is available in the Debian Linux distribution.

Thanks, but I use RedHat (5.1). I'm hoping to make up some RPMs of the
popular tools, so other RedHatters can do multicast too.

> mrouted 3.9 (you know, the mrouted missing SNMP).

So if my ISP won't handle multicast traffic, and I have to create a
tunnel to someone, they would need to run their mrouted in this mode
(assuming they use mrouted), otherwise when I drop the connection, the
tunnel is dropped permanently ?

Cheers,

--
Ross

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From: Magnus Danielson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 21:57:26 +0200

RG> Magnus Danielson wrote:
 >> sdr, vat and rat is available in the Debian Linux distribution.

 RG> Thanks, but I use RedHat (5.1). I'm hoping to make up some RPMs of the
 RG> popular tools, so other RedHatters can do multicast too.

Well, my point is that they should be easy enought to get running on
any Linux. Vic in receive mode should not meet any trouble where as
transmitting (requireing some framegrabber) might need more carefull
look at things.

 >> mrouted 3.9 (you know, the mrouted missing SNMP).

 RG> So if my ISP won't handle multicast traffic, and I have to create a
 RG> tunnel to someone, they would need to run their mrouted in this mode
 RG> (assuming they use mrouted), otherwise when I drop the connection, the
 RG> tunnel is dropped permanently ?

Your ISP should give you the multicast feed, preferably native multicast.

Actually, normally Mrouted would send continous hello messages even if
your home machine has no running Mrouted. When running this passive
mode would the hello messages not be sent unless it has received a
hello message from your Mrouted recently. This way you wake up the
feed by starting your Mrouted as well as you put it to sleep by
killing your Mrouted, which is exactly how you would a dial up feed to
work unless you do native multicast (where you just use IGMP to do
this for you). Besides, all it took where 10 lines of code to get it
running, and this include the config file parsing stuff ;)
Bill was so very nice adding this little feature of mine when asked to.

Cheers,
Magnus

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From: "Jordan Mendelson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 16:31:40 -0400

> things like 'mrouted', 'sdr' and 'vic/vat'? Preferably glibc compatible.

Linux 2.1.x (now going into pre-2.2.x stages) contains PIM-SM version 1 and
2 support now directly in the kernel. More information about it is available
at http://netweb.usc.edu/pim/.

I'm still waiting for all the tools I need to provide multicast services to
my dialup customers... and the software they need to make something happen.
(Real Audio has multicast support no?).

There is a pimd daemon at http://catarina.usc.edu/pim/pimd/ which is pretty
alpha... and a PIM-SM Gated from ISI at
http://www.isi.edu/~eddy/pim/pim.html. Unfortunately you have to pay more
licensing fees than the average person has to obtain Gated (I'm an ISP, not
a bank ISI.. geez :).

Jordan

--
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