Internet Group Management Protocol - Host and Router Implementations

Host and Router Implementations

The IGMP protocol is implemented on a particular host and within a router. A host requests membership to a group through its local router while a router listens for these requests and periodically sends out subscription queries. The FreeBSD, Linux and Windows operating systems support IGMP at the host side.

For the server side implementation, the Linux case uses a daemon such as mrouted to act as an IGMP Linux router. There are also entire routing suites (such as XORP or Quagga), which turn an ordinary computer into a full-fledged multicast router.