Patent ID: 8774181

Claim:
A method comprising: determining whether a rendezvous point (RP) router in a network needs to receive multicast traffic for a multicast group from a downstream router on a non-RP link in the network, wherein the RP router receives control messages for multicast traffic using Protocol Independent Multicast Bidirectional Mode (PIM-BIDIR), and wherein the RP router comprises a router connected to a RP link having a rendezvous point address (RPA), and wherein other routers are connected to the RP link; when the RP router does not need to receive the multicast traffic, sending a RP-prune control message for the multicast group toward the downstream router on the non-RP link to prevent the downstream router from forwarding multicast traffic for the multicast group to the RP router; and updating a RP-prune state for the multicast group in a control plane of the RP router to include an interface for the downstream router.