The default behavior for a Layer 2 switch is to forward all multicast traffic to every port that belongs to the destination LAN on the switch. This behavior reduces the efficiency of the switch, whose purpose is to limit traffic to the ports that need to receive the data. This behavior requires a constraining mechanism to reduce unnecessary multicast traffic, which improves switch performance.

CGMP is a Cisco-developed protocol used on device connected to Catalyst switches to perform tasks similar to those performed by IGMP. CGMP is necessary for those Catalyst switches that do not distinguish between IP multicast data packets and IGMP report messages, both of which are addressed to the same group address at the MAC level. The switch can distinguish IGMP packets, but would need to use software on the switch, greatly impacting its performance.

You must configure CGMP on the multicast device and the Layer 2 switches. The result is that, with CGMP, IP multicast traffic is delivered only to those Catalyst switch ports that are attached to interested receivers. All other ports that have not explicitly requested the traffic will not receive it unless these ports are connected to a multicast router. Multicast router ports must receive every IP multicast data packet.

Using CGMP, when a host joins a multicast group, it multicasts an unsolicited IGMP membership report message to the target group. The IGMP report is passed through the switch to the router for normal IGMP processing. The router (which must have CGMP enabled on this interface) receives the IGMP report and processes it as it normally would, but also creates a CGMP Join message and sends it to the switch. The Join message includes the MAC address of the end station and the MAC address of the group it has joined.

The switch receives this CGMP Join message and then adds the port to its content-addressable memory (CAM) table for that multicast group. All subsequent traffic directed to this multicast group is then forwarded out the port for that host.

The Layer 2 switches are designed so that several destination MAC addresses could be assigned to a single physical port. This design allows switches to be connected in a hierarchy and also allows many multicast destination addresses to be forwarded out a single port.

The device port also is added to the entry for the multicast group. Multicast device must listen to all multicast traffic for every group because IGMP control messages are also sent as multicast traffic. The rest of the multicast traffic is forwarded using the CAM table with the new entries created by CGMP.

IGMP snooping is an IP multicast constraining mechanism that runs on a Layer 2 LAN switch. IGMP snooping requires the LAN switch to examine, or “snoop,” some Layer 3 information (IGMP Join/Leave messages) in the IGMP packets sent between the hosts and the router. When the switch receives the IGMP host report from a host for a particular multicast group, the switch adds the port number of the host to the associated multicast table entry. When the switch hears the IGMP Leave group message from a host, the switch removes the table entry of the host.

Because IGMP control messages are sent as multicast packets, they are indistinguishable from multicast data at Layer 2. A switch running IGMP snooping must examine every multicast data packet to determine if it contains any pertinent IGMP control information. IGMP snooping implemented on a low-end switch with a slow CPU could have a severe performance impact when data is sent at high rates. The solution is to implement IGMP snooping on high-end switches with special application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that can perform the IGMP checks in hardware. CGMP is a better option for low-end switches without special hardware.

CGMP and IGMP snooping are IP multicast constraining mechanisms designed to work on routed network segments that have active receivers. They both depend on IGMP control messages that are sent between the hosts and the routers to determine which switch ports are connected to interested receivers.

Switched Ethernet backbone network segments typically consist of several routers connected to a switch without any hosts on that segment. Because routers do not generate IGMP host reports, CGMP and IGMP snooping will not be able to constrain the multicast traffic, which will be flooded to every port on the VLAN. Routers instead generate Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) messages to Join and Prune multicast traffic flows at a Layer 3 level.

Router-Port Group Management Protocol (RGMP) is an IP multicast constraining mechanism for router-only network segments. RGMP must be enabled on the routers and on the Layer 2 switches. A multicast router indicates that it is interested in receiving a data flow by sending an RGMP Join message for a particular group. The switch then adds the appropriate port to its forwarding table for that multicast group--similar to the way it handles a CGMP Join message. IP multicast data flows will be forwarded only to the interested router ports. When the router no longer is interested in that data flow, it sends an RGMP Leave message and the switch removes the forwarding entry.

If there are any routers that are not RGMP-enabled, they will continue to receive all multicast data.