PIM-DM Multicast Routing for UNIX

Introduction

pimdd is the dense-mode cousin to pimd, the reference implementation for PIM-DM draft 5. Later revised in RFC3973, which pimdd does not (yet) fully support.

PIM-DM is similar to DVRMP (mrouted), they are both flood-and-prune multicast routing protocols, but unlike DVMRP, PIM implementations rely on the underlying unicast routes to be established already.

This GitHub project is an attempt at reviving pimdd. The latest code on the master branch has been infused with fresh DNA strands from the pimd project, including a netlink back-end to read the unicast routing table, and full IGMPv3 support (ASM).

HELP NEEDED: The project needs more volunteers to test and update pimdd to RFC3973.

Running pimdd

If you have more than one router, you need to have unicast routing set up already between all subnets. Usually an IGP like OSPF or even RIP is used for this. Then start pimdd as root, it backgrounds itself as a proper UNIX daemon:

pimdd

Use the pimctl control tool (shared with pimd) to query status. The project also ships a systemd unit file that allows for customization of command line arguments using an environment file: /etc/default/pimdd.

See the manual pages for details on command line options, config file settings, and the pimctl control tool:

• https://man.troglobit.com/man8/pimdd.8.html
• https://man.troglobit.com/man8/pimctl.8.html
• https://man.troglobit.com/man5/pimdd.conf.5.html

To help out with development, or tracking down bugs, it is recommended to run pimdd in debug mode. Since there are many debug messages, you can specify only a subset of the messages to be printed out:

Usage: pimdd [-hnpqrsv] [-d SYS[,SYS]] [-f FILE] [-l LVL] [-w SEC]

 -d SYS    Enable debug of subsystem(s)
 -f FILE   Configuration file, default: /etc/pimdd.conf
 -h        This help text
 -i NAME   Identity for config + PID file, and syslog, default: pimdd
 -l LVL    Set log level: none, err, notice (default), info, debug
 -n        Run in foreground, do not detach from calling terminal
 -p FILE   Override PID file, default is based on identity, -i
 -s        Use syslog, default unless running in foreground, -n
 -u FILE   Override UNIX domain socket, default based on identity, -i
 -v        Show program version
 -w SEC    Initial startup delay before probing interfaces

Available subystems for debug:
  all, igmp, groups, igmp_proto, igmp_timers, igmp_members, interfaces, 
  kernel, mfc, neighbors, pkt, rsrr, pim, asserts, bsr, detail, graft, hello, 
  registers, routes, pim_routes, jp, pim_timers, rpf, timers, timeout, trace

If you want to see all messages, use pimdd -d all. When debugging pimdd, it is recommended to run in foreground as well.

Build & Install

When building from a released tarball, the configure script is bundled and you do not need to do anything special (see below for building from GIT). The Makefile supports de facto standard settings and environment variables such as --prefix=PATH and DESTDIR= for the install process. E.g., to install pimd to /usr instead of the default /usr/local, but redirect install to a package directory in /tmp:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var
make
make DESTDIR=/tmp/pimd-dense-1.0.0 install-strip

Building from GIT

If you want to contribute, or simply just try out the latest but unreleased features, then you need to know a few things about the GNU build system:

• configure.ac and a per-directory Makefile.am are key files
• configure and Makefile.in are generated from autogen.sh
• Makefile is generated by configure script

To build from GIT you first need to clone the repository and run the autogen.sh script. This requires automake and autoconf to be installed on your system.

git clone https://github.com/troglobit/pimd-dense.git
cd pimd-dense/
./autogen.sh
./configure && make

GIT sources are a moving target and are not recommended for production systems, unless you know what you are doing!

Origin & References

This code is old and was sort of dead and forgotten. The only project that kept it running was FreeBSD in their ports collection. As such it was included in the BSD Router Project.

pimdd was written by Kurt Windisch when he was at University of Oregon. It is based on the PIM sparse-mode daemon, pimd, which in turn is based on the DVMRP daemon mrouted.

pimdd is covered by LICENSE, Copyright 1998 the University of Oregon.

pimd is covered by LICENSE.pimd, Copyright 1998-2001 University of Southern California.

mrouted is covered by LICENSE.mrouted, Copyright 2002 The Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University