Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP)

During one of my Incredibly fun projects with BGP, I had to quickly and efficiently research, learn, and implement a new ( to me ) technology. While setting up my side of a BGP peer I also had to set up a Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) peer. Of course, the service provider was like oh and not forget the MSDP config. Because the service provider uses Juniper equipment I start my search on the Juniper help pages.

The Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) is used to connect multicast routing domains. It typically runs on the same router as the Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) sparse-mode rendezvous point (RP). Each MSDP router establishes adjacencies with internal and external MSDP peers similar to the way BGP establishes peers. These peer routers inform each other about active sources within the domain. When they detect active sources, the routers can send PIM sparse-mode explicit join messages to the active source. 

The Juniper TechLibrary did a really great job of spelling it out for me. After that, the configuration was pretty smooth, with the exception of a mistyped password. luckily a quick look in the log showed an MSDP authentication error :)

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