Posts tagged VLC

PIM-SM on Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000

4
June 24, 2011
by Michael McNamara in

There was yet another question recently on the discussion forums (I almost never have to search too hard for ideas to write about) concerning how to configure PIM-SM on the Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 series. While I’ve written in the past about DVMRP and PIM-SM on the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 in I’ve never written about running PIM-SM on any of the stackable Ethernet Routing Switches (the 4500 or 5000 series). It honestly took me longer to figure out to configure VLC (with all the changes it’s gone through) than it took for me to configure the Ethernet Routing Switch 5520 or setup the two Windows XP clients. I downloaded VLC v1.1.10 and configured one Windows XP desktop (192.168.200.10) to act as the streaming Multicast server while the other Windows XP laptop (192.168.100.10) would act as the Multicast receiver. I utilized a Multicast address of 239.255.1.1 for this test and I made sure to set the TTL for the UDP stream greater than 1.

While running through the initial configuration I realized that you must have an Advanced License to enable PIM-SM on the Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 series. Since I don’t have any “spare” Advanced Licenses I downloaded the evaluation license from Avaya’s support website and loaded it on my test switch.

Here’s the configuration I used for the Ethernet Routing Switch 5520;

interface vlan 100
ip address 192.168.100.1 255.255.255.0 2
ip pim enable
interface vlan 200
ip address 192.168.200.1 255.255.255.0 3
ip pim enable
exit
ip pim enable
ip pim static-rp
ip pim static-rp 239.255.1.1/32 192.168.200.1

With PIM-SM configured I setup VLC on the Windows XP desktop (192.168.200.10) to Multicast the video stream to 239.255.1.1. I then setup the Windows XP laptop (192.168.100.10) to receive the Multicast stream on udp://239.255.1.1:1234. It took me a few minutes to work through some of the new menus on VLC but I eventually got it working.

I was able to confirm everything was working properly with the “show ip pim mroute” command.

5520-48T-PWR(config)#show ip pim
PIM Admin Status:  Enabled
PIM Oper Status:  Enabled
PIM Boot Strap Period:  60
PIM C-RP-Adv Message Send Interval:  60
PIM Discard Data Timeout:  60
PIM Join Prune Interval:  60
PIM Register Suppression Timer:  60
PIM Uni Route Change Timeout:  5
PIM Mode:  Sparse
PIM Static-RP:  Enabled
Forward Cache Timeout:  210

5520-48T-PWR(config)#show ip pim static-rp
Group Address   Group Mask      RP Address      Status
--------------- --------------- --------------- -------
239.255.1.1     255.255.255.255 192.168.200.1   Valid

5520-48T-PWR(config)#show ip pim mroute
 Src: 0.0.0.0       Grp: 239.255.1.1  RP: 192.168.200.1 Upstream: NULL
 Flags: WC RP
 Incoming  Port: Vlan200-null,
 Outgoing Ports: Vlan100-21
 Joined   Ports:
 Pruned   Ports:
 Leaf     Ports: Vlan100-21
 Asserted Ports:
 Prune Pending Ports:
 Assert Winner Ifs:
 Assert Loser Ifs:
TIMERS:
  Entry   JP   RS  Assert
    178    0    0       0
 VLAN-Id:   100   200
  Join-P:     0     0
  Assert:     0     0
  Src: 192.168.200.10  Grp: 239.255.1.1  RP: 192.168.200.1 Upstream: NULL
 Flags: SPT CACHE SG
 Incoming  Port: Vlan200-31,
 Outgoing Ports: Vlan100-21
 Joined   Ports:
 Pruned   Ports:
 Leaf     Ports: Vlan100-21
 Asserted Ports:
 Prune Pending Ports:
 Assert Winner Ifs:
 Assert Loser Ifs:
TIMERS:
  Entry   JP   RS  Assert
    179    0    0       0
 VLAN-Id:   100   200
  Join-P:     0     0
  Assert:     0     0

Total Num of Entries Displayed 2
Flags Legend:
        SPT = Shortest path tree
        WC = (*,Grp) entry
        RP = Rendezvous Point tree
        CACHE = Kernel Cache
        ASSERTED = Asserted
        SG = (Src,Grp) entry
        FWD_TO_RP = Forwarding to RP
        FWD_TO_DR = Forwarding to DR
        SG_NODATA = SG Due to Join
        IPMC_ERR = IPMC Add Failed

Cheers!

VLC Playback over Wireless Network

2
January 10, 2010
by Michael McNamara in

Over the past two weeks I’ve been laid up at home quite a bit. The first week I was recovering from septoplasty surgery to repair my deviated septum which is believed to be causing me some sleep apnea.  The following week I pulled a muscle in my back while laying in my daughter’s bed. If you’ve ever pulled a muscle in your back you know how painful it can be.

With all that idle time I took to watching a few classic movies that I had stored on my Windows Vista desktop computer in the basement. I was using a laptop from my bed watching the movies over 802.11b/g wireless from a share on my desktop. Unfortunately the movies would occasionally pause and start, over and over again. When I checked the statistics from VLC I noticed that I was pushing between 5MB/s and 6MB/s which is right around the peak performance for an 802.11b/g wireless network. I went digging into the VLC preferences and found an option to increase the caching/buffering which thankfully eliminated any of the pausing and starting issues.

Here’s how I made the configuration change;

Select Tools from the Main Menu bar,

Select Preferences (Ctrl-P) from the Tools drop down menu, you should see a window similar to the figure above,

In the bottom left hand corner under “Show Settings” select All,

Expand Input/ Codes

Expand Access Modules

Select File and increase the value to 10000 (10 seconds)

Select Save

Now you just need to restart VLC and you’ll notice that it will take quite a bit longer to buffer/cache before it starts playing. The buffering/caching will help prevent any drops in network performance from being visible within VLC.

You might ask what move classics I ended up watching?

  • Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

I also ended up watching quite a few James Bond movies including;

  • Die Another Day
  • Casino Royale
  • Quantum of Solace

Thankfully my back is feeling much better and my nose looks to be healing very nicely.

I’m curious if there is an easier way to stream movies/music around the house from Windows Media Center. I’ve read about some new players to the media extender market including Roku and Boxee. I’d love to find a solution where I could stream my movies and music around the house to either a TV of another computer.

Cheers!

Multicast Routing Protocol (Part 2)

10
April 29, 2008
by Michael McNamara in

In part 1 of this post I looked at how to configure DVMRP to facilitate inter-VLAN Multicast commuications on a single switch. In this post I’ll look at how to configure PIM to facilitate inter-VLAN Multicast communications across multiple switches and routers (Layer 3 switches).

I took a few minutes and threw together a quick diagram to help layout the topology (a picture is truly worth a thousand words). There are two core ERS 8600 switches (a switch cluster as Nortel likes to call it these days). There are three VLANs bridged across all four switches in the diagram, VLAN 55, 56 and 200. There is a fourth VLAN, 57, that is routed from ERS 8600 C. The ERS 5520 in the diagram will only be used as a Layer 2 even though it could potentially be used as a Layer 3 device (router).


I’m going to review two possible configurations. The first scenario will be for a client device (VLC Client A) in a VLAN routed by the core ERS 8600s. The second scenario will be for a client device (VLC Client B) in a VLAN routed by a closet ERS 8600.

Lets get on with configuring some ERS 8600 switches. First lets enable PIM globally;

ERS8600-A# config ip pim enable
ERS8600-A# config ip pim fast-joinprune enable

Then we’ll enable PIM on the specific VLANs;

ERS8600-A# config vlan 55 ip pim enable
ERS8600-A# config vlan 56 ip pim enable
ERS8600-A# config vlan 200 ip pim enable

We need to create a CLIP interface to use for PIM routing, we don’t want to tie the PIM routing to a physical interface in case that interface goes down for whatever reason. We’re already using CLIP 1 for our OSPF router ID of 10.1.0.5/32.

ERS8600-A# config ip circuitless-ip-int 2 create 10.1.0.15/255.255.255.255
ERS8600-A# config ip circuitless-ip-int 2 ospf enable
ERS8600-A# config ip circuitless-ip-int 2 pim enable

We need to add a candidate Rendezvous Point Router (RP) pointing it to our CLIP address.

ERS8600-A# ip pim candrp add grp 239.255.1.1 mask 255.255.255.255 rp 10.1.0.15

We need to set the priority of the Bootstrap Router (BSR) for dynamic PIM routing.

ERS8600-A# ip pim interface 10.1.0.15 cbsrpreference 100

Then on the second core ERS 8600 switch;

ERS8600-B# config ip pim enable
ERS8600-B# config ip pim fast-joinprune enable
ERS8600-B# config vlan 55 ip pim enable
ERS8600-B# config vlan 56 ip pim enable
ERS8600-B# config vlan 200 ip pim enable
ERS8600-B# config ip circuitless-ip-int 2 create 10.1.0.16/255.255.255.255
ERS8600-B# config ip circuitless-ip-int 2 ospf enable
ERS8600-B# config ip circuitless-ip-int 2 pim enable
ERS8600-B# config ip pim candrp add grp 239.255.1.1 mask 255.255.255.255 rp 10.1.0.16
ERS8600-B# config ip pim interface 10.1.0.16 cbsrpreference 50

That’s really all there is to configure with the two core ERS 8600 switches.

ERS5520 Switch (Edge)
In the case of the ERS 5520 switch there really isn’t anything you need to configure per say. You could enable IGMP (generally disabled by default) to filter the multicast traffic from ports that are not subscribing to any multicast groups. Since the ERS8600s are performing the routing the ERS5520 acts just like a Layer 2 switch.

VLC Client A (10.1.56.50) should now be able to connect to the multicast group 239.255.1.1 from the ERS 5520 which will be sourced from the VLC Server (10.1.55.50).

ERS8600 C Switch (Edge)
In the case of the ERS 8600 switch (edge) you need to configure and enable PIM. We’ll using VLAN 200 to interface with the upstream ERS8600 switches

ERS8600-C:5# config ip pim enable
ERS8600-C:5# config vlan 57 ip pim enable
ERS8600-C:5# config vlan 57 ip pim interface-type passive
ERS8600-C:5# config vlan 200 ip pim enable

Since there won’t be any other Layer 3 PIM switches on VLAN 57 we set the PIM interface to passive (much like the OSPF equivalent of passive).

VLC Client B (10.1.57.50) should now be able to connect to the multicast group 239.255.1.1 from the ERS 8600 C which will be sourced from the VLC Server (10.1.55.50).

We can dump the multicast (PIM) routing table with the following command from the edge ERS8600 switch;

ERS8600-C:5# show ip pim mroute

================================================================================
Pim Multicast Route
================================================================================
Src: 0.0.0.0 Grp: 230.0.0.2 RP: 10.1.0.5 Upstream: 10.1.200.5
Flags: WC RP CACHE
Incoming Port: Vlan200-1/1,
Outgoing Ports: Vlan127-2/42,
Joined Ports:
Pruned Ports:
Leaf Ports: Vlan127-2/42,
Asserted Ports:
Prune Pending Ports:
Assert Winner Ifs:
Assert Loser Ifs:
TIMERS:
Entry JP RS Assert
151 1 0 0
VLAN-Id: 200
Join-P: 0
Assert: 0
——————————————————————————–
Src: 10.1.233.30 Grp: 230.0.0.2 RP: 10.1.0.5 Upstream: 10.1.200.5
Flags:
SPT CACHE SG
Incoming Port: Vlan200-1/1,
Outgoing Ports: Vlan127-2/42,
Joined Ports:
Pruned Ports:
Leaf Ports: Vlan127-2/42,
Asserted Ports:
Prune Pending Ports:
Assert Winner Ifs:
Assert Loser Ifs:
TIMERS:
Entry JP RS Assert
64 4 0 0
VLAN-Id: 200
Join-P: 0
Assert: 0
——————————————————————————–

Total Num of Entries Displayed 2
Flags Legend:
SPT = Shortest path tree, WC=(*,Grp) entry, RP=Rendezvous Point tree, CACHE=Kernel Cache, ASSERTED=Asserted, SG=(Src,Grp) entry, PMBR=(*,*,RP) entry, FWD_TO_RP=Forwarding to RP, FWD_TO_DR=Forwarding to DR, SG_NODATA=SG Due to Join, CP_TO_CPU=Copy to CPU, STATIC_MROUTE=Static Mroute, MRTF_SMLT_PEER_SG=Peer SG On Non-DR For SMLT
——————————————————————————–

Troubleshooting

Here are some basic commands that should help you troubleshoot any PIM issues;

ERS8600-A:5# show ip pim neighbor

================================================================================
Pim Neighbor
================================================================================
INTERFACE ADDRESS UPTIME EXPIRE
——————————————————————————–
Vlan55 10.1.55.6 31 day(s), 00:09:53 0 day(s), 00:01:40
Vlan56 10.1.56.6 31 day(s), 00:09:53 0 day(s), 00:01:40
Vlan200 10.1.200.6 31 day(s), 00:09:53 0 day(s), 00:01:34

Total PIM Neighbors = 3

We can see that all three VLAN interfaces have PIM neighbors with the ERS 8600 B switch. Lets just check the RPs and make sure we have the correct multicast groups (addresses).

ERS8600-A:5# show ip pim rp-set

================================================================================
Pim RPSet
================================================================================
GRPADDRESS GRPMASK ADDRESS HOLDTIME EXPTIME
——————————————————————————–
230.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 10.1.0.15 150 137
230.0.0.2 255.255.255.255 10.1.0.15 150 137
239.255.1.1 255.255.255.255 10.1.0.15 150 137

The multicast addresses of 230.0.0.1 and 230.0.0.2 listed above are used for Nortel’s Contact Center (formerly Symposium Call Center software). Here’s how we can list the candidate RPs;

ERS8600-A:5# show ip pim candidate-rp

================================================================================
Pim Candidate RP Table
================================================================================
GRPADDR GRPMASK RPADDR
——————————————————————————–
230.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 10.1.0.15
230.0.0.2 255.255.255.255 10.1.0.15
239.255.1.1 255.255.255.255 10.1.0.15

If we’re dynamically choosing a RP we need to make sure that there is a BSR active;

ERS8600-A:5# show ip pim bsr

================================================================================
Current BootStrap Router Info
================================================================================

Current BSR address: 10.1.0.15
Current BSR priority: 100
Current BSR HashMask: 255.255.255.252
Current BSR Fragment Tag: 44590
Pim Bootstrap Timer : 31

I may need to update this article to make it cleaner and clearer.

Cheers!

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