Overview

IGMP snooping runs on a Layer 2 switch as a multicast constraining mechanism to improve multicast forwarding efficiency. It creates Layer 2 multicast forwarding entries from IGMP packets that are exchanged between the hosts and the router.

As shown in Figure 10, when IGMP snooping is not enabled, the Layer 2 switch floods multicast packets to all hosts. When IGMP snooping is enabled, the Layer 2 switch forwards multicast packets of known multicast groups to only the receivers.