The bootstrap router (BSR) ensures that all routers in the PIM domain have the same RP cache as the BSR. You can configure the BSR to help you select an RP set from BSR candidate RPs. The function of the BSR is to broadcast the RP set to all routers in the domain. You select one or more candidate BSRs to manage the RPs in the domain. Only one candidate BSR is elected as the BSR for the domain.
This figure shows the BSR mechanism. Router A, the software-elected BSR, sends BSR messages out all enabled interfaces (shown by the solid lines in the figure). The messages, which contain the RP set, are flooded hop by hop to all routers in the network. Routers B and C are candidate RPs that send their candidate-RP advertisements directly to the elected BSR (shown by the dashed lines in the figure).
The elected BSR receives candidate-RP messages from all the candidate RPs in the domain. The bootstrap message sent by the BSR includes information about all of the candidate RPs. Each router uses a common algorithm to select the same RP address for a given multicast group.
