A method comprising receiving a request from a network component to find a backup ingress node for an ingress node of a point-to-multipoint (P2MP) label switched path (LSP), determining a plurality of candidate backup ingress nodes that satisfy a plurality of constraints, including being an edge node in the ingress node's domain and having a direct link to the ingress node, a path to each next hop node of the ingress node of the P2MP LSP, and a path from a source node that communicates with the ingress node, wherein the determination is in response to receiving the request, selecting the backup ingress node from the candidate backup ingress nodes that has a minimum cost of paths from the source node to the next hop nodes via the backup ingress node; and sending a reply to the network component that indicates the selected backup ingress node.