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Can FOG and/ or WDS do multicast over an ordinary unmanaged Gigabit Switch? or does it need hardware with specific multicast features?

Trying to help a small non profit in Asia with a poor budget.

Currently Scenario:

Intend to add WDS or FOG on the physical Server to leverage functionality.

Future scenario:

  • They might be able to find or source 2008 R2/ 2012 R2 in the future (possibly)

Question:

  • Under the current and/ or future scenario would it be possible to multi cast?

OR

  • Do we need a Switch that has certain features - If so what minimal feature do I have to look for (if I google or search Amazon/ Newegg etc)? Or can only do a Unicast way?

From whatever reading I have done, I'm wondering if WDS / FOG are capable of Multicast without such equipment.

All these links are broken.

Community
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ProBonoAdminVolunteerInAsia
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  • I am pretty sure that multicast is possible over unmanaged switches. It depends on the IP addresses, they have to be in the multicast group to receive properly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_multicast. That means that the DHCP server needs to be properly configured for multicast deployments. – Elliot Huffman Jul 26 '16 at 14:35

2 Answers2

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Hi I don't know what FOG is but WDS will allow you to Multicast over unmanaged switches but the unmanaged switches will treat the Multicast traffic like Broadcast traffic. meaning that the unmanaged switches will flood the multicast traffic out of all ports apart from the port the traffic was received on. Also if there are any routers on the network that don't support multicasting then they will drop the traffic and not forward it. the only real benefit to using WDS and multicasting across unmanaged switches is that it will save resources on the WDS server itself but that might be offset by the extra traffic you see on your switch.

Michael Brown
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Here's what was posted by aero as a reply and makes sense:

You don't need a special or managed switch. However, it would be preferable for your switch to support IGMP Snooping. That will prevent the multicast traffic from being transmitted on every port. Instead, it will only be delivered to ports where there is a listener.

If you are running an access point in the same vlan you're trying to use multicast, and don't have an IGMP snooping capable switch, you WILL completely congest your wifi frequencies. It will completely cripple your wireless network when you try to use multicast.

Secondly, if you are trying to do this over a routed network (rather than all hosts in the same vlan), then you will need a router that supports the PIM protocol.

Alex S
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