[AG-TECH] IGMPv3, Source Specific Multicast, fully supported in Windows XP

[Jay Beavers]

A while back there was a conversation about future capabilities of multicast applications once IGMPv3, or source specific multicast, was available.  During the conversation it came up that Microsoft Windows took some tentative steps towards IGMPv3 support but it was pulled before Windows XP was released.
 
I've spoken with Dave Thaler, Lead Program Manager for Windows Networking and one of our resident multicast experts and he's told me that IGMPv3 support made it into Windows XP and is fully supported.  Unfortunately, our documentation is lagging and we don't yet have an MSDN sample application on how to use the support.
 
For those who wish to play with this support, I'm working with Dave to get some sample code available.  I'm also talking to the folks who support System.Net.Sockets about what it's going to take to get SSM into the .NET class library.  If you are programming with Winsock today and you'd like to try SSM, drop me a note and I'll try and get something out ASAP.  Note I'm on vacation next week so ASAP is not immediately ;-)
 
 
On the down side, I've confirmed that SSM functionality is not yet in our IPv6 network stack, as the ICMPv6 mappings for SSM are not yet standardized.  Unfortunately for the time being, we have a choice of SSM over IPv4 or IPv6.
 
 
Since I'm not a router bithead, can anyone give me a heads up if I should expect SSM to "just work" between Internet2 nodes?  Or might there be complications?
 
 - jcb