Multicast support AND GRE over IPSec
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This is kind-of two parts, but they're both related so I just put it into one.
I'd like to gauge the interest in adding multicast support to PfSense (not by me unfortunately, I'm not worthy…). I've run a couple of searches on the forum and looks like other people are looking for it as well. Multicast support added to PfSense would help with the following:
- Quite a few VoIP systems use multicast for conferencing, paging, music on hold, video conferencing, etc. Since a benefit of VoIP is having remote offices with phones and remote phones you need to somehow get mutlticast to those phones/PCs.
- Use PfSense as a possible replacement to the TV over IP (IP-TV) routers provided by some ISP's (ATT's U-Verse maybe?)
- Possibly enable services like bonjour/zero config to cross subnets or even VPN tunnels.
I'm mostly interested in #1. Especially over VPN tunnels. Currently, the only way to stream multicast to a remote location is:
A) Use a point-to-point dedicated WAN link with no encryption.
B) MPLS with multicast support.
C) A GRE tunnel to enclose the multicast traffic and encapsulate that inside an IPSec tunnel for security.A and B can be quite expensive.
Since PfSense already supports GRE and IPSec (That new IPSec interface kicks so much ass BTW :D ). How hard would it be to:
- Allow the use of an IPSec tunnel as an interface when configuring GRE.
- Enable multicast routing with the GRE and LAN interfaces.
I think this would be a super cool addition to PfSense. It could make PfSense a competitive multimedia routing platform. I know FreeBSD includes multicast routing support with the MROUTED, but I don't know how well it works or what features it provides.
I'd be willing (read: able) to donate a $150 or so. I hope other people can throw in the pot too since this would be a pretty big job.
Thoughts?
Thanks!!
Riley -
I, too, would be willing to add $150 to this bounty for multicast tunneling/forwarding/routing. I'm looking to route multicast packets over OpenVPN tunnels.