UC Santa Cruz

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for updating routing information associated with a multicast group in an information-centric network (ICN). During operation, a first node in the ICN receives an update message for the multicast group from a neighbor node. The multicast group includes a root anchor node and a number of anchor nodes with the root anchor node having a smaller name than the anchor nodes. The update message specifies a prefix associated with the multicast group and the root anchor node of the multicast group. The system selects, based on topology information stored on the first node, from neighbors of the first node one or more next-hop neighbors that meet a notification condition, and forwards the update message to the one or more next-hop neighbors