# PIM-DM Route Expiry time

**URL:** https://forum.networklessons.com/t/pim-dm-route-expiry-time/7322
**Category:** Multicast
**Created:** [June 3, 2019, 6:34am UTC](https://forum.networklessons.com/t/pim-dm-route-expiry-time/7322 "2019-06-03T06:34:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![maniam](https://cdn-forum.networklessons.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@maniam](https://forum.networklessons.com/u/maniam)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 6:34am UTC](https://forum.networklessons.com/t/pim-dm-route-expiry-time/7322/1 "2019-06-03T06:34:20Z")

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Hi,

Imagine an internetwork that supports PIM-DM multicasting. The ‘show ip mroute’ shows the multicast routing table entries for a router. Each (S,G) entry has an associative Uptime/Expires. The default value for Expire is 3 minutes. I was wondering if we could change the default value?

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### Author: ![lagapidis](https://cdn-forum.networklessons.com/user_avatar/forum.networklessons.com/lagapidis/32/4949_2.png) [@lagapidis](https://forum.networklessons.com/u/lagapidis)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2019, 6:03pm UTC](https://forum.networklessons.com/t/pim-dm-route-expiry-time/7322/2 "2019-06-04T18:03:24Z")

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Hello Mani

Yes, you can change this default. You can achieve this using the `ip pim sparse sg-expiry-timer`  
command shown in the following Cisco Command Reference:

> **[Cisco IOS IP Multicast Command Reference - ip pgm host through ip pim...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/ipmulti/command/imc-cr-book/imc_i3.html#wp2591255791)**
>
> ip pgm host through ip pim version

I hope this has been helpful!

Laz

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![maniam](https://cdn-forum.networklessons.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@maniam](https://forum.networklessons.com/u/maniam)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2019, 6:21pm UTC](https://forum.networklessons.com/t/pim-dm-route-expiry-time/7322/3 "2019-06-04T18:21:33Z")

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Thanks Laz for the reply,

that command is only relevant for PIM-SM. I am not sure if it has effect in PIM-DM. Am I missing something?

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### Author: ![lagapidis](https://cdn-forum.networklessons.com/user_avatar/forum.networklessons.com/lagapidis/32/4949_2.png) [@lagapidis](https://forum.networklessons.com/u/lagapidis)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2019, 11:00am UTC](https://forum.networklessons.com/t/pim-dm-route-expiry-time/7322/4 "2019-06-06T11:00:19Z")

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Hello Mani

My apologies, you are correct. From the research I’ve done, I haven’t found any references to being able to change the default expiry timer for multicast routing entries when using dense mode. In PIM-DM, traffic is pushed every 3 minutes, and routers downstream that don’t need the traffic prune it back. That’s the behavior of PIM-DM.

Now in order to optimize this behaviour, specifically for the pruning state of specific routes, there is what is called the State-Refresh mechanism which was introduced. Because every time the expiry timer elapses, there is flooding of large amounts of traffic into areas of the network that don’t need it. Any pruning that was enabled has expired and must be reestablished.

What state refresh does is it keeps the pruned state in dense mode from timing out by forwarding a control message down the distribution tree. This refreshes the prune state on the outgoing interfaces, resetting the expiry timer. The frequency of this refresh state must be less than the 3 minutes expiry timer.

More information about the state refresh mechanism can be found here which includes quite a clear description:

> **[IP Multicast: Multicast Optimization Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS Release...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/ipmulti_optim/configuration/15-sy/imc-optim-15-sy-book/imc_pim_dense_rfrsh.html#GUID-766B2499-3797-403E-97AA-B7752A5DC574)**
>
> PIM Dense Mode State Refresh

For examples of how it is configured, you can see this link as well:

> **[IP Multicast: Multicast Optimization Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS Release...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/ipmulti_optim/configuration/15-sy/imc-optim-15-sy-book/imc_pim_dense_rfrsh.html#GUID-BBAEB731-074A-4CB0-889B-860E7825D2E8)**
>
> PIM Dense Mode State Refresh

I hope this has been helpful!

Laz
