Forwarding multicast packets in a VPLS router on the basis of MAC addresses

A method comprising:

• with a router of a Virtual Private local area network (LAN) Service (VPLS) domain, dynamically learning a mapping between a multicast source device and a Media Access Control (MAC) address of a router that introduces multicast traffic into the VPLS domain from the multicast source device for a multicast group;
• based on the learned mapping, installing a forwarding information entry within the router, wherein the entry specifies a matching prefix that includes the MAC address of a router that introduces the multicast traffic into the VPLS domain from the multicast source device and an L2 multicast group address associated with the multicast group;
• and
• forwarding received multicast traffic to receivers of the multicast traffic for the multicast group from the router based on a list of ports specified in the forwarding information entry without reference to any layer three (L3) information of the multicast traffic, wherein the received multicast traffic is received as L2 multicast frames having L2 headers.