To solve the reliability problem of multicast transmission in industrial Internet of things (IIoT) based on SDN (software defined network),the data retransmission mechanism based on cache is studied,and a cache-based reliable multicast scheme is proposed. A cache-based reliable multicast (CBRM) framework and the corresponding reliable multicast algorithm are designed. Cache nodes for temporarily storing multicast data are deployed in selected locations in SDN. If receiving or forwarding node detects packet loss,it will require its upstream nodes to retransmit the lost packet. To support data retransmission of cache nodes,a UDP (user datagram protocol)-based reliable transmission protocol (URTP) is designed. The results of Mininet simulation show that the CBRM framework and the corresponding reliable multicast algorithm can guarantee the reliability of multicast transmission at a much lower cost than traditional methods.