A Policy Framework for Multicast Group Control

In spite of lower resource utilization and bandwidth conservation, multicasting is not deployed widely. For commercial use, the Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) functionalities must be accommodated by extending the classical unsecured model of IP multicast. For this extension, there is a need for a flexible, scalable and easily adaptable policy framework for multicast access control. In this paper, a policy framework for multicast group access control has been proposed, which fully complies with the Multicast Security Framework and follows the IETF Policy Framework as well. For policy specification, the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and for carrying policy information, the Security As- sertion Markup Language (SAML) have been used. An example access control policy has been developed using XACML for an on-line course, which will be multicast to the registered students.