IGMP snooping and proxy

[Yarga]

Greetings O Powerful and Wise Hivemind!

Is IGMP snooping or proxy necessary on a home network? I do have several Apple TVs and Sonos running through one managed and one unmanaged switches. I have noticed significantly slower wifi on my wired APs (OpenMesh A62s) which have IGMP proxy enabled vs the wifi radio from the Asus Router......


Thanks in advance.

 

[sfx2000]

Snooping - yes, can help
Proxy - typically not needed

Give that a try...

 

[Yarga]

thanks

 

[Yarga]

What is the difference between the two?

 

[umarmung]

If you think of multicast traffic like a potential DDOS attack because it floods all the ports of switches, then crudely:

• IGMP Snooping = filter out unnecessary (multicast) traffic to hosts
• IGMP Proxy = filter out unnecessary traffic back to routers

On a home network, except in the most unusual situations where you either have a large number of multicast hosts, multicast groups or a very weak router that also supports IGMP traffic (unlikely), you should not need IGMP Proxy.

It is unlikely you are using IGMP anyway since you would know it from either trying to configure it from your service provider or you setting it up yourself.

Your APs are probably just weaker or setup sub-optimally compared to the Asus router.

 

[Yarga]

Thanks!