The Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP) is a communication protocol that allows hosts to request multicast addresses from a server.[1] [2] [3]
The Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP) is designed to allow for automatic dynamic assignment of multicast addresses.[4]
MADCAP allows for efficient allocation of multicast addresses. This is important for IPv4 which has a small number of multicast addresses available. This is less of a concern with IPv6 multicast. Whereas IPv6 allows for 2112 possible multicast addresses, IPv4 multicast addresses are restricted to only class D Internet addresses (224.0.0.0/4).[5] [6]
Port number 2535 is assigned by IANA for use with this protocol.[7] All protocol messages are encapsulated in UDP datagrams.[8] The MADCAP protocol has much in common with DHCP, but they are separate protocols with no common dependencies.[9]
MADCAP was originally based on DHCP. Microsoft included MADCAP as part of the DHCP service in Windows 2000.[10] RFC 2730 was published as a proposed networking standard by the IETF in December 1999. Guidelines for the allocation of IPv6 multicast addresses using MADCAP were published in RFC 3307 in August 2002.[11]