Patent ID: 8848512

Claim:
A rendezvous point (RP) convergence method, wherein the method is applied in a protocol independent multicast-sparse mode, and the method comprises: starting, by a first node, a first timer when detecting that a route of an original working RP is unreachable, wherein the first timer is used to count time for the original working RP; sending, by the first node, a notification message to a second node when the first timer times out and the route of the original working RP keeps being in an unreachable state within a timing period of the first timer; wherein the notification message comprises address information of the first node and address information of the original working RP; forwarding, by the second node, the notification message to an adjacent node if a reverse path forwarding (RPF) check performed by the second node passes, so that the notification message is sent to a bootstrap router (BSR) through multiple times of forwarding of network nodes in a current network; upon the forwarding the notification message, receiving, by the first node, a bootstrap message sent by the BSR, wherein Holdtime of the original working RP carried in the bootstrap message is 0; and disabling, by the first node, the original working RP and enabling a candidate RP as a new working RP according to the bootstrap message; wherein: if the second node and the original working RP are adjacent nodes, a second timer is started when the second node detects that the route of the original working RP is unreachable, wherein the second timer is used to count time for the original working RP, and a timing period of the second timer is longer than the timing period of the first timer.