8. SSRC Identifier Allocation and Use (original) (raw)

Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
8. SSRC Identifier Allocation and Use

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8. SSRC Identifier Allocation and Use

The SSRC identifier carried in the RTP header and in various fields of RTCP packets is a random 32-bit number that is required to be globally unique within an RTP session. It is crucial that the number be chosen with care in order that participants on the same network or starting at the same time are not likely to choose the same number.

It is not sufficient to use the local network address (such as an IPv4 address) for the identifier because the address may not be unique. Since RTP translators and mixers enable interoperation among multiple networks with different address spaces, the allocation patterns for addresses within two spaces might result in a much higher rate of collision than would occur with random allocation.

Multiple sources running on one host would also conflict.

It is also not sufficient to obtain an SSRC identifier simply by calling random() without carefully initializing the state. An example of how to generate a random identifier is presented in Appendix A.6.

Next: 8.1 Probability of Collision

Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
8. SSRC Identifier Allocation and Use