MSDP - Other Institutions neither See nor Hear Us

If your network appears in mBGP but other institutions do not see or hear you in the venue, then there may be a problem with MSDP, the protocol used on Abilene to advertise that a particular host has information to send. To check MSDP, you will need to know the IP of your host as well as the multicast "group" your venue is using. You can determine the group address in the Venue Client by selecting "Venue" then "Properties". The group will appear in the "address" field of the properties window (see figure 1). The first number of a group IP address is always between 224 and 239. In figure 3, the multicast session shown is the Access Grid Lobby group "224.2.177.155". From the Abilene looking glass, select the "show msdp" command and, in the text box, type "source-active group" followed by the group your venue is using.

Figure 2 is an example with eleven sources successfully advertising their video session to the group 224.2.177.155 via MSDP.

Figure 3 is an example of a multicast group, 224.2.211.160, where no one is transmitting.