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Hands On: Broadcast Analysis of UPNP and SSDP Packets

Intent-based Networking
(Image: Pixabay)

I’ve written many articles on how broadcasts or multicasts can affect performance. I’ve seen as little as 10% broadcast rate cause issues on wireless networks as well as lock up network attached devices.

One of the broadcasts I try to minimize are UPNP and SSDP packets. The methodology used is quite simple, I perform a PC boot up and login baseline.  Then I disable UPNP and SSDP and retest the computer. When I’m sure it is not needed, I start a capture with the following capture filter ‘udp port 1900.’  The list of addresses in the endpoint report will be my list of devices to clean up.

Just some advice:

-- Always capture after your change for a particular type of device or software to ensure the protocols have been disabled.

-- I have found some devices that require the UPNP server and client to be disabled.

-- Even when you disable these protocols in Windows, an application could either re enable or bring its own UPNP/SSDP protocol.

-- Some applications may have their own version of a discovery protocol like Apple’s Bonjour and Dropbox

Once you get the hang of this you will realize that you can quickly reduce broadcasts and probably find other things to tune. Here is a video overview of the process: