Networking - What is the use of IGMP protocol?

What is the use of IGMP protocol?

- Internet Group Management Protocol:- It allows internet hosts to participate in multicasting.

- The IGMP messages are used to learn which host is part of which multicast groups.

- The mechanism also allow a host to inform its local router, that it wants to receive messages.

- It is a communication protocol which is used by the hosts and the adjacent routers on the IPv4 networks to establish multicast group memberships.

- It is an integral part of IP multicast.

- It is used for many one-to-many networking applications like the video streaming and gaming and uses efficient resources.

- The multicast management on the IPv6 networks are handled by the Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) that use ICMPv6 messaging in contrast to IGMP's bare IP encapsulation.