US Patent 9479348 Technique to submit multicast membership state in absence of querier

A method of submitting multicast membership packets by a host in a multicast domain in absence of a querier to trigger those packets is provided. The host includes a silent state and an active state. In the silent state, the host receives membership query packets from a querier and responds by sending multicast report packets to multicast group addresses that the host is joined. When a membership query packet is not received during a configurable period of time, the host changes from the silent state to active state and starts sending unsolicited multicast report packets to the multicast addresses that the host has joined.