Python Multicast on BeagleBone Black AP

Question

I'm trying to setup UDP multicasting on a BeagleBone Black to broadcast data to two windows tablets and also my windows PC as a test device, all of which are connected to the BBB wireless hotspot.

I have standard UDP communications running between the BeagleBone and my PC, and the BeagleBone and one windows tablet, but I would like to be able to add new tablets to the network without having to add their IP addresses to the BeagleBone code, so that led me to multicasting.

So far I've tried test scripts from the below three links as well as a few others and haven't had any luck. From reading through the tutorials in those links it seems like people have had problems with platform specific parameters (see the comments in link 1), also link (2) has comments from the authors that seem to indicate they weren't able to consistently get their test scripts to work.

Is anyone aware of platform specific setup necessary for the BeagleBone Black to allow multicasting on its hotspot/access point?

If anyone has successfully run a python multicasting example with devices connecting to the BBBW hotspot it'd be awesome to hear about it and gain some confidence that this is not a black hole!

(1) Multicast in Python --- platform specifics between mac and windows

(2) https://wiki.python.org/moin/UdpCommunication --- comments posted throughout this indicate it may just not work

(3) https://pymotw.com/3/socket/multicast.html --- I've tried the test scripts in here with no luck

Answer 1

I don't have a BBBW but I do have a BeagleBone Green Wireless, which reportedly uses the same wireless Texas Instruments chip (WL1835MOD).

I found that this chip doesn't support ad-hoc WIFI , but it seems to be part of Texas Instruments "WiFlink 8" family which does claim to support multicast.

Multicast packets will not make it past your router unless you have a specialized (= expensive, not consumer-grade) router, so make sure all the devices you want to multicast to are on the same subnet.