0

On one of my Windows Servers (Windows Server Standard 2019), I'd like to remove multicast handling completely. Completely really means completely - completely ignore incoming multicast traffic, and completely disable sending of outgoing multicast traffic, under any circumstances and regardless of what applications try to do.

I have found many similar questions and answers. However, all of them were only asking or answering how a specific part of multicast could be configured or turned off, for example, how to prevent Windows from sending unicast answers to multicast packets, or how to remove IGMP subscriptions, or how to disable or block IGMP. But none of them shows how to disable multicast handling completely.

My own ideas:

  1. Remove the multicast routes (as administrator, just run route delete 224.0.0.0 in a cmd window; a subsequent route print indeed shows that those routes now are gone, but I am not sure if this is sufficient or whether they could be re-added automatically in the case of certain events, for example when connecting via VPN to another server and thereby creating a new interface where Windows will automatically add a multicast route to).

  2. Block all inbound and outbound traffic to 224.0.0.0/4 in Windows Firewall (however, I am not sure whether this will work at all; perhaps Windows firewall only handles unicast traffic ...).

What do you think about that? Are there other ways (I'd still like to completely remove multicast instead of fight against it)?

Binarus
  • 519
  • 3
  • 15
  • I think it sounds like an extraordinarily bad idea. What on earth led you to this extremity? – Michael Hampton Oct 03 '20 at 16:15
  • During my research, it took only a short time until I stumbled across at least two features which are driven by multicast and are considered harmful from a security perspective. Since I am not an expert in this field, I am sure that there is more about it. At the same time, I know that this specific server never will need multicast handling. Therefore, I'd like to turn it off there. – Binarus Oct 04 '20 at 14:09

0 Answers0