The invention relates to a method for managing multicast traffic in a data network, and network equipment using said method. Hosts receive from a network interface of a router traffic sent by sources in a multicast group. The hosts and the router communicate with one another by using a multicast host-router communications protocol by which the hosts send to the router messages to request multicast traffic from sources in a multicast group. The router receiving one of said messages obtains in said message identifying data which identify the host that has sent said message, and said router stores in specific records for each network interface of the router, host and multicast group information about the sources the traffic of which has been requested by said host in said messages sent to the router.