--- title: "X Multicast" description: "" url: "https://docs.itrsgroup.com/docs/geneos/7.11.0/collection/x-multicast/index.html" --- ## Introduction The Geneos X Multicast plugin monitors multicast traffic and displays statistics such as the data rate and message rate, for a list of user-defined multicast groups. This plugin differs from the X Mcast plugin in that is actually subscribes for data from the multicast groups, rather than just listening to data already present on the network. This means the plugin is slightly less efficient, but requires fewer privileges to run. The Netprobe host must be able to subscribe to the required multicast group to run successfully. ## Views ### View The X Multicast plugin produces a single view, with one row per configured multicast session. **Headline Legend**
Name Description
totalDataRecvRate Data receive rate for all monitored sessions.
totalMsgRecvRate Message receive rate for all monitored sessions.
**Table Legend**
Name Description
name The session name, as configured by the user.
port The session port, as configured by the user.
dataRecvRate Data received in Kb/s, averaged over the sample interval.
msgRecvRate Datagram messages received per second, averaged over the sample interval.
tmSinceLastMsg Number of seconds since the last message was received.
status

The session status, either "listening", "inactive", or a descriptive error message.

"inactive" status will be displayed on a multicast group that has not received any traffic since monitoring was started.
## Plugin Configuration Plugin configuration is placed in the x-multicast configuration section. X Multicast can currently support a maximum of 1024 sessions on UNIX, and 64 sessions on Windows. ### var-recvInterfaces Specifies a comma-separated list of network interface names to monitor multicast data on. On UNIX machines, interface names can be found using the command "ifconfig -a". Example names are "eth0" or "ce0". On Windows machines, interface names can be listed by running Netprobe using the "-ifconfig" command-line option. A Windows interface name will look similar to the following: ``` \Device\NPF_{BDFE3EAC-0275-440A-923C-C9C4CE3B37F2} ``` Mandatory: Yes ### sessions Specifies the list of (at least one) multicast sessions that this plugin will monitor. Mandatory: Yes ### sessions > session > var-name The name of the multicast session - this is the name which will be displayed in the view (as the row name). Session names should be unique within each plugin instance. Mandatory: Yes ### sessions > session > connection Specifies the multicast address and port for the session - the plugin will subscribe to this multicast group and messages received for this connection will be added to the monitoring statistics for this session. Mandatory: Yes ## Third Party Libraries Windows: The Npcap packet capture library needs to be installed on the host. If Npcap is not installed using WinPcap API-compatible mode, then the Npcap installation directory must be added in the `PATH` environment variable or the `DLL_PATH` registry variable. Unix: The shared library `libpcap.so` needs to be in the `netprobe/lib64` directory. It is recommended to use `libpcap.so` version 1.0.0 or later. Note: As the Netprobe needs to be run as root, the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` is ignored for security reasons.