DVMRP

networkingISP & telecom

Stands for: Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol

Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol - the first multicast routing protocol, and the engine of the MBone: RIP's logic, pointed at delivery trees.

DVMRP (RFC 1075, 1988) built multicast's proof of concept: a RIP-like distance-vector exchange defining reverse paths, and flood-and-prune delivery - send the stream everywhere, let uninterested branches prune themselves, repeat as prunes expire. Its monument is the MBone, the 1990s virtual multicast backbone of DVMRP tunnels over the unicast internet, over which IETF meetings, NASA missions, and a famous Rolling Stones concert were streamed years before 'streaming' was a word anyone used. The flood-and-prune economics could not scale, PIM Sparse Mode replaced it, and DVMRP retired into history - the protocol that showed multicast could work at all.

Also known as: dvmrp, mbone, flood and prune, mrouted

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