1. Bundle Protocol Specification
Keith Scott
Minneapolis, MN

2. This Presentation Current Bundle Protocol Spec Document
Expires soon (now)
What’s in it
What we like, don’t like, and are unsure about
Bundle header picture
Ways forward

3. TOC Expires: March 2005 Jet Propulsion Laboratory Table of Contents
Introduction
Service Description
Definitions
Services at the User Interface
Summary of Primitives
Requests
Indications
Summary of Parameters
Destination Communications endpoint ID
Source Communications endpoint ID
Report Communications endpoint ID
Class of Service
Delivery Options
Lifespan
Application Data Unit
Delivery Failure Action
Bundling Service Primitives
SEND.REQUEST
CANCELBUNDLE.REQUEST
REGISTER.REQUEST
START-DELIVERY.REQUEST
STOP-DELIVERY.REQUEST
CHANGE-REGISTRATION.REQUEST
DEREGISTER.REQUEST
POLL.REQUEST
DATA.INDICATION
SENDERROR.INDICATION
SENDTOKEN.INDICATION
REGISTRATIONTOKEN.INDICATION
Bundle Message Format
General Bundle Header Format
Tuples
Primary Bundle Header
Bundle Payload Header
Bundle Authentication Header
Payload Security Header
Bundle Fragment Header
Dictionary Header
Rules Governing the Appearance and Order of Headers..22
Bundle Processing
Bundle transmission requests
Bundles received from other bundle agents
Internet Draft Bundle Protocol Specification September 2004
Delay Tolerant Networking Research Group K. Scott
Internet Draft The MITRE Corporation
<draft-irtf-dtnrg-bundle-spec-02.txt>
September S. Burleigh
Expires: March Jet Propulsion Laboratory

4. Things We’re Pretty Sure About
Service Primitives (§2.5)
What’s there is good, some missing (more later)
General Header Chaining Structure (§3.1)
Administrative Payloads (§5)
Application data where the bundle node is the application, and the data units support the operation of the bundle protocol itself
Bundle status payloads, Custody ACKs, etc.
Split of responsibilities between bundle & convergence layers (§6)
Need to support bundle fragmentation / reassembly

5. Things We Think Are Good Ideas
Dictionary to improve header overhead (§3.8)
Pointers in primary bundle header currently assume two-part naming
Exchanging administrative (address) information at the beginning of a ‘contacts’ to enable ‘passive-mode’ transfers
Need to formalize this as a particular type of administrative bundle

6. Things We Think Need Refinement
API required to implement security architecture
Using multipath routing / forwarding to improve reliability / decrease latency
How to remove duplicates once we decide they’re no longer needed?
Support for forward erasure coding in conjunction with multipath routing / forwarding
Protocol support for multipoint delivery

7. Things We Think Are Totally Open
Interaction between user desires and policy
API for notification / negotiation
Protocol support for streaming apps?

8. String Records (variable) String Count
32 bits
Version
Next Header
CoS Flags
Payl’d Security
Primary Bundle Header
Destination
Source
Report-to
Custodian
Creation Timestamp
Dictionary Header
Expiration Time
Next Header
String Records (variable)
String Count
Fragment Header
Next Header
Length of Original Bundle Payload
Payload len (cont’d)
Fragment Offset
Frag. Offset (cont’d)
Payload Class
Length of bundle payload
Payload Header
Bundle Payload (variable)
Length (cont’d)

9. Hash/MAC Length (2 bytes, SDNV?) Hash/MAC Length (2 bytes, SDNV?)
String (Variable)
Dictionary String Format
Length (1B)
Security Stuff
Bundle
Auth.
Header
Hash/MAC Alg. (opt)
Hash of all bundle fields (Primary header through end of payload)
Hash/MAC Key ID (opt)
Hash/MAC Length (2 bytes, SDNV?)
Payload Security Header
Hash/MAC covering: Primary bundle header, dictionary header, override report-to header source routing header (if present), payload security header (this), bundle payload header.
Hash/MAC Alg. (opt)
Hash/MAC Key ID (opt)
Hash/MAC Length (2 bytes, SDNV?)
SDNV = Self-Delimiting Numerical Value

10. Ways Forward Move from ‘Next Header’ to ‘Current Header’ identifiers?
Remove ‘Payload Class’ from payload header (holdover from before administrative bundles)
Just a question: can we (do we want to) support ‘router-alert’ style administrative bundles?
Include Length fields in headers (at least dictionary header?)
Would allow padding of individual headers to XX-bit boundaries
Security: Move all of security into separate headers?
Payload security ‘above’ bundling
Hop-by-hop security ‘below’ bundling
Source Routing Header
Next type, total length, # of entries, current entry index, list of tuples (and bits identifying loose/strict for each?)

11. Other Stuff To Add?
DO specify how new header types can be defined in future documents
Allow a new header type (TBD in separate document?) that a bundle router in the path can add to a bundle flowing through it
NOT end-to-end significant (not covered by PSH, and ripped out at destination)
Add ‘my id’ and ‘# of times I’ve seen it’ to detect/deal w/ replay
Could implement as a general ‘added header type’ with above security example as one case
Other (possibly non-security-related) applications