Re: [dtn] [EXTERNAL] Benjamin Kaduk's Discuss on draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis-22: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

["Burleigh, Scott C (US 312B)" <[e-mail]>]

Thanks for the very close reading, Ben.  Responses in-line below.

-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Kaduk via Datatracker <[e-mail]> 
Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2020 7:17 PM
To: The IESG <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]; Fred Templin <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]; [e-mail]; [e-mail]
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Benjamin Kaduk's Discuss on draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis-22: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

Benjamin Kaduk has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-dtn-bpbis-22: Discuss

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DISCUSS:
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I support Roman's Discuss.

(1) It's not clear to me that we should be defining new (near-)application-layer protocols on the standards track without mandatory security mechanisms.  Even draft-ietf-dtn-bpsec defines a "BPSec threat model" that is largly the same as the RFC 3552 threat model, in which the network is completely untrusted and to provide end-to-end communications we must supply additional security mechanisms, yet BPSec is not required to implement or use.  I could perhaps see room for allowing waypoint nodes that do not act as endpoints to remain security-unaware, but the justification for security-unaware endpoints seems quite lacking.

	The consensus position of the WG, I believe, is that BP may in some cases be deployed in closed, highly resource-constrained systems where the overhead of implementing, much less using, the security mechanisms would be considered both prohibitive and needless.  For such environments, making those mechanisms mandatory might result in either non-adoption of the IETF standard or adoption of a non-compliant implementation, both undesirable.
	The specification can easily be revised to require the implementation of BPsec, but I think that shouldn't be done until the WG has reached a revised consensus.

(2) The state machine for transitions between singleton EID and non-singleton EID seems highly unclear to be usable in a globally synchronized manner (I refer specifically to the text in Section 4.1.5.2: "A node's membership in a given singleton endpoint MUST be sustained at least until the nominal operation of the Bundle Protocol no longer depends on the identification of that node using that endpoint's ID").  Distinction between singleton-EID and non-singleton EID may need to be made an explicit protocol element.

	An endpoint never makes a transition from being singleton to being non-singleton; a singleton endpoint is an endpoint that always contains exactly one member (3.1).  The intent of the design is that the singleton-ness of an endpoint can be discerned from the endpoint's ID in a manner that is scheme-dependent; for example, all endpoints identified by ipn-scheme IDs are singleton endpoints (section 10.8 will now include this statement).

(3) The forwarding procedure in Section 5.4 refers to a "data label extension block (to be defined in a future document)" with no reference; it doesn't really seem like this sort of speculative forward-looking statement is appropriate in a Proposed Standard.

	Fine; note removed.

(4) We discuss using a Previous Node block to "return a bundle to sender"
when forwarding failed, but do not discuss whether Previous Node should be added (or updated or removed) on transmission, receipt, or both.

	Good point.  Explicit language is being added to 4.3.1 and 5.4.

(5) The extensibility story seems incompletely described: what should an implementation do upon receiving a bundle with an unrecognized control flag bit set, or a block with an unrecognized control flag set?

	Step 3 of 5.6 defines the action to be taken when any block of the bundle (including the primary block, which contains the bundle processing flags) is malformed according to this specification.

(6) The use of absolute times for creation timestamps suggests a strong dependence on accurate time (for nodes that do not acknowledge their lack of an accurate clock); the consequences of the failure of accurate time should be discussed in the security considerations section.

	The absolute times (and sequence numbers) in bundle creation timestamps are used to form bundle IDs, so the accuracy of those times is moot for nearly all purposes; the exception is determination of the time at which a bundle's lifetime expires, normally the sum of the bundle's creation time and its time-to-live.  When the time reference at a bundle protocol agent is not accurate, the Bundle Age block compensates for the lack of an accurate bundle creation time as described in 4.3.2.

(7) Section 4.1.6 should make a statement regarding whether leap seconds are included or excluded from the count of seconds since the DTN epoch.

	The count of seconds since the DTN epoch is a count of seconds, elapsed intervals of time.  Leap seconds are not seconds; a leap second never elapses, it is merely asserted.  So by definition the count of seconds since the DTN epoch does not include leap seconds.

(8) The definition of Fragment offset needs to specify whether the lowest allowed byte index is zero or 1 (I believe zero, from other discussion).

	Fragment offset is not a byte index, it is an offset.  The offset of X from Y is Y - X.  Therefore the minimum value of fragment offset can only be zero.

(9) Bundle status reports are only defined to include the creation timestamp of the bundle whose status is being reported on, but not the sequence number thereof.  Since we allow nodes without accurate clocks to use a creation timestamp of zero and rely solely on the sequence number to identify bundles, it seems that the status reports for such bundles are effectively useless without the sequence number information.

	Creation timestamp is defined in 4.2.2 as including both the bundle's creation time and also the bundle's creation timestamp sequence number.

(10) Please resolve the internal inconsistency in Section 10.6 that simultaneously claims that potential bundle protocol URI scheme types are integers of undefined length and only have 255 available codepoints (i.e., definite length).

	There is no inconsistency.  The URI scheme code number field in each BP endpoint ID is a CBOR unsigned integer (see 4.1.51); the length of that CBOR unsigned integer is not defined in this specification.  However, the Bundle Protocol URI scheme types registry contains only 256 codepoints.  This means that, in practice, no URI scheme code number appearing in a transmitted bundle need be longer than 2 bytes (usually only 1), although a mischievous CBOR implementation might represent that number in 3 or 5 or 9 bytes with a lot of leading zeroes.

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COMMENT:
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It's pretty unfortunate that we have to have separate (built-in) CRC and (dedicated block type) BIB support; a more unified scheme that always provides cryptographic integrity protection would have simpler encoding rules.  I rather wonder why it's not possible to roll the CRC as a mechanism for detecting media-induced errors into the CLA functionality as opposed to needing to be in the top-level BPA.  Then media not susceptible to errors could use no or a small CRC and more malleable media could use stronger CRCs, leaving the decision closer to the knowledge of the transport properties.

	This has been a point of contention for many, many years.  The BPv6 specification (RFC 5050) was exactly aligned with your suggestion, but at long last we were convinced to add CRCs to the design.  Many of us would prefer not to reopen that can of snakes.

Is a registration something that conceptually lives "in the network", or a purely local matter to the node in question?  What about active vs. passive state thereof?

	Registrations are purely local.  There is no mechanism for advertising them to other nodes, and (at least currently) no need.

The creation timestamp, sequence number, and lifetime can serve to some extent to detect replay of old data, though given the environments we expect this to operate in, it may be hard to differentiate a replay from normal delivery.  I don't see any mechanisms that would allow for detection of dropped bundles (whether due to attack or other error), though it's not entirely clear that such a mechanism is possible in these environments.

	A separate application service protocol running above BP, named "Delay-Tolerant Payload Conditioning", has been defined for these purposes, and has been implemented.  Whether or not running DTPC in real operations actually makes sense is a question whose answer will clearly be environment-specific.

It may also be worth considering whether there is use for the ability detect a truncated application-layer "stream" that's a group of bundles related to each other in some way.  I do see that the protocol is largely focused on bundles as discrete units, and so expect the answer to be "no", but this is one of the more standard security mechanisms, so I wanted to explicitly check.

	Yes, DTPC can be used for this purpose.  In less forgiving environments the "data label" mechanism you remark on above would be used to identify bundles that are related to one another.  Mechanisms for streaming data over a delay-tolerant network have also been defined and implemented, though not yet standardized.

Similarly, one might imagine a block type that indicates the initial block types present in a bundle, which could be (required to be) subject to integrity protection so that removal of blocks could be detected at the recipient.

	Yes, the idea of a "manifest block" has also been discussed for many years, though not yet defined or implemented.

Some further discussion of these points, in terms of the goals for these environments and what behaviors are actually attained, might be appropriate in the security considerations section.

Section 3.1

   Application Data Unit (ADU) - An application data unit is the unit
   of data whose conveyance to the bundle's destination is the purpose
   for the transmission of some bundle that is not a fragment (as
   defined below).

I understand the desire for precision, but this definition feels very convoluted and could perhaps be made more accessible to an application author.

	I think the precision is important.

   Bundle node - A bundle node (or, in the context of this document,
   simply a "node") is any entity that can send and/or receive bundles.
   Each bundle node has three conceptual components, defined below, as
   shown in Figure 2: a "bundle protocol agent", a set of zero or more
   "convergence layer adapters", and an "application agent".

If a node always has an application agent, won't anything done by that application agent make the node also part of an endpoint?  Yet we discuss waypoint nodes that are not endpoints...

	No, all nodes are identified by node IDs, which are singleton endpoint IDs, which means that every node -- whether waypoint or end system -- is a member of at least one endpoint.  "Endpoint" in BP is not the same as "end system."

   Delivery - A bundle is considered to have been delivered at a node
   subject to a registration as soon as the application data unit that
   is the payload of the bundle, together with any relevant metadata
   (an implementation matter), has been presented to the node's
   application agent in a manner consistent with the state of that
   registration.

Is this metadata considered attached to the ADU or the bundle or something else?

	That metadata is purely an implementation artifact, a feature of the API.  Some of it might be information from the bundle's primary block -- or other blocks -- but some of it might be local information.

   Delivery failure action - The delivery failure action of a
   registration is the action that is to be taken when a bundle that is
   "deliverable" subject to that registration is received at a time
   when the registration is in the Passive state.

Just to check my understanding: with registrations being per-(node,endpoint), in a case where many nodes are in an endpoint, we'll undertake a delivery failure action for each node with a passive registration even if the bundle is successfully delivered to a different node with an active registration?

	Yes; this would be multicast, for which there is at least one prototype specification and implementation but no standard yet.  Notions of DTN "anycast" have been floating around for years but nobody has defined exactly what that would look like, AFAIK.

How does this interact with the "report-to" EID?

	If the report-to EID happened to be the ID of an endpoint with multiple members, then the status report would be delivered at multiple nodes.

Section 3.2

   Every CLA implements its own thin layer of protocol, interposed
   between BP and the (usually "top") protocol(s) of the underlying
   native protocol stack; this "CL protocol" may only serve to
   multiplex and de-multiplex bundles to and from the underlying native
   protocol, or it may offer additional CL-specific functionality. The
   manner in which a CLA sends and receives bundles, as well as the
   definitions of CLAs and CL protocols, are beyond the scope of this
   specification.

We still need to specify what interfaces a CLA needs to present to the BPA, though!  Section 7 is a start at this (and probably worth cross-referencing from here), though it feels pretty sparse.

	I don't think we need to specify those interfaces in a protocol specification.  They will be different for different BPA implementations.

   In the case of a node that serves simply as a BP "router", the AA
   may have no application-specific element at all. The application-

(But earlier we said that a node has all three elements, including an application agent.  What would the Administrative Element do on such a "router" node?)

	It would respond to (and/or issue) administrative records: status reports and potentially other administrative records yet to be defined.

   The destination of every bundle is an endpoint, which may or may not
   be singleton.  The source of every bundle is a node, identified by
   the endpoint ID for some singleton endpoint that contains that node.

It might be worth a forward-reference to Section 4.1.5.2 where we record the requirement for a valid endpoint ID of a given node.

   The bundle protocol is designed for extensibility.  Bundle protocol
   extensions, documented elsewhere, may extend this specification by:
      [...]
      . defining additional mandates and constraints on processing
         that conformant bundle protocol agents must perform at
         specified points in the inbound and outbound bundle processing
         cycles.

It's not clear to me how "additional mandates and constraints" can successfully be imposed by protocol extensions given that the source node cannot in general know the path(s) the bundle will take.

	The source node can always state what it wants to happen; whether it will actually happen or not is unknowable.  Like so much in life.

Section 4.1.2

   When not omitted, the CRC SHALL be represented as a CBOR byte string
   of two bytes (that is, CBOR additional information 2, if CRC type is
   1) or of four bytes (that is, CBOR additional information 4, if CRC
   type is 2); in each case the sequence of bytes SHALL constitute an
   unsigned integer value (of 16 or 32 bits, respectively) in network
   byte order.

This seems to preclude the possibility of any future CRC types being defined (without an update to this specification).

	That's right.  We didn't want to add another open-ended configuration dimension unnecessarily.

Section 4.1.3

   If the bundle's source node is omitted (i.e., the source node ID is
   the ID of the null endpoint, which has no members as discussed
   below; this option enables anonymous bundle transmission), then the
   bundle is not uniquely identifiable and all bundle protocol features
   that rely on bundle identity must therefore be disabled: the "Bundle
   must not be fragmented" flag value must be 1 and all status report
   request flag values must be zero.

It's also impossible for the user application to acknowledge such an anonymous bundle, right, so that flag would also be zero?  Or do such reports go to the "Report-to EID"?

	But that acknowledgment is by the user application of the destination, to the user application of the source; the user application isn't being asked to send an acknowledgment to the BPA of the source.  That acknowledgment will be possible if and only if the ID of the application-layer endpoint is included in the application data unit somewhere.
	In practice this feature is not used much, but DTPC does exercise it.

     . Bits 21-63 are unassigned.

Does this imply a mandatory encoding (width) of the CBOR unsigned integer representing the flags (and a hard limit on the number of possible flags)?

	There is a hard limit on the number of possible flags (see 10.3), but the representation of this value on the wire is simply a CBOR unsigned integer; no mandatory length.

Section 4.1.4

     . This block must be replicated in every fragment.  (Boolean)

     . Transmission of a status report is requested if this block
        can't be processed.  (Boolean)

     . Block must be removed from the bundle if it can't be processed.
        (Boolean)

     . Bundle must be deleted if this block can't be processed.
        (Boolean)

nit: perhaps we could reorder this list to match the order in which the bit flags are allocated?

	Sure, good idea.

Section 4.1.5.1

   Each BP endpoint ID (EID) SHALL be represented as a CBOR array
   comprising a 2-tuple.

nit: Is there a reason to not just say "a CBOR array of two elements"?

	How about "comprising two items"?

   The first item of the array SHALL be the code number identifying the
   endpoint's URI scheme [URI], as defined in the registry of URI
   scheme code numbers for Bundle Protocol maintained by IANA as
   described in Section 10. [URIREG].  Each URI scheme code number

I'm not sure why [URIREG] is the reference here; it has nothing to do with the "code numbers for Bundle Protocol".

	Right, this will be fixed in version 23.

     . If the EID's URI scheme is "ipn" then the SSP SHALL be
        represented as a CBOR array comprising a 2-tuple.  The first

[same comment about "two elements"]

	Same fix.

        item of this array SHALL be the EID's node number represented
        as a CBOR unsigned integer.  The second item of this array
        SHALL be the EID's service number represented as a CBOR
        unsigned integer.

Where are node and service numbers defined?

	Adding a little text to 4.1.5.1.

     . Definitions of the CBOR representations of the SSPs of EIDs
        encoded in other URI schemes are included in the specifications
        defining those schemes.

This feels kind of weird; the vast majority of URI schemes are not going to define CBOR encoding rules for their SSPs, but above we claim that bundle protocol is usable with any registered URI scheme.  Absent some mechanism for a separate document from the scheme definition to specify the CBOR encoding rules for the SSP, these claims are incompatible.

	Good catch!  I think those rules should be included in the entries of the BP URI Scheme Types registry.  Modifying that registry definition.

Section 4.1.5.2

      . The EID of any singleton endpoint of which a node is a member
        MAY be used to identify that node. A "node ID" is an EID that
        is used in this way.
      . A node's membership in a given singleton endpoint MUST be
        sustained at least until the nominal operation of the Bundle
        Protocol no longer depends on the identification of that node
        using that endpoint's ID.

Per the Discuss point, this feels like it's unworkable in practice; if we had a way to reliably distribute knowledge of which EIDs are usable as node IDs and/or are in use as node IDs, we could also use that mechanism to distribute lots of other useful things, like key material, revocation information, etc.  Since we claim to not be able to do those things, it's a little boggling to see a claim that we can do this for node IDs.  It kind of seems like we may have to make a fundamental distinction between "singleton EIDs" and "EIDs that may have multiple member nodes" in order to get these properties to be workable globally.

	Right, see the response to the Discuss point.

Section 4.1.7

   The second item of the array SHALL be the creation timestamp's
   sequence number, represented as a CBOR unsigned integer.

We haven't introduced the term "sequence number" yet.

	We just did.

Section 4.1.8

   Block-type-specific data in each block (other than the primary
   block) SHALL be the applicable CBOR representation of the content of

nit: as a stylistic matter, this qualification seems too important to relegate to a parenthetical.

	I disagree.

Section 4.2.1

We probably want to check for consistency between what's here and what's covered in the section-4 intro -- both use normative keywords, and Section 4 talks about the penultimate array item being the payload block, which we don't mention here.

	We're consistent.  The payload block is a canonical block.

Section 4.2.2

   The primary block of each bundle SHALL be immutable.  The values of
   all fields in the primary block must remain unchanged from the time
   the block is created to the time it is delivered.

Is there a technical mechanism that can enforce this?

	The CRC and/or BIB on the primary block.

   Lifetime: The lifetime field is an unsigned integer that indicates
   the time at which the bundle's payload will no longer be useful,
   encoded as a number of microseconds past the creation time. (For
   high-rate deployments with very brief disruptions, fine-grained
   expression of bundle lifetime may be useful.)  When a bundle's age

Does this mean that we assume that the creation time has microsecond accuracy as a reference even though it is only encoded with seconds-level precision?

	No, only the lifetime has this sort of accuracy.  The operational utility of microsecond accuracy in the bundle lifetime has yet to be fully explored.

   the CRC type.  The CRC SHALL be computed over the concatenation of
   all bytes (including CBOR "break" characters) of the primary block
   including the CRC field itself, which for this purpose SHALL be
   temporarily populated with the value zero.

nit: the CRC is a CBOR byte string; "the value zero" assumes an implied encoding of that byte string.  Perhaps "all bytes zero" is better.

	Yes, that's better.

Section 4.2.3

   Every block other than the primary block (all such blocks are termed
   "canonical" blocks) SHALL be represented as a CBOR array; the number
   of elements in the array SHALL be 5 (if CRC type is zero) or 6
   (otherwise).

Is this an invariant that future-defined block types must also adhere to?

	Yes.  Future block types have to comply here; their content (the block-type-specific data) may be anything at all, but the overall structure of the canonical block is fixed.

        computed over the concatenation of all bytes of the block
        (including CBOR "break" characters) including the CRC field
        itself, which for this purpose SHALL be temporarily populated
        with the value zero.

[same comment as above re. "all bytes zero"]

	Yes.

Section 4.3.2

   The Bundle Age block, block type 7, contains the number of
   microseconds that have elapsed between the time the bundle was
   created and time at which it was most recently forwarded.  It is

(Are we again assuming the creation time to have microsecond accuracy even though the precision of representation is in seconds?)

	No, the creation time plays no role in procedures involving the Bundle Age block.

   The block-type-specific data of this block is an unsigned integer
   containing the age of the bundle in microseconds, which SHALL be
   represented as a CBOR unsigned integer item. (The age of the bundle
   is the sum of all known intervals of the bundle's residence at
   forwarding nodes, up to the time at which the bundle was most
   recently forwarded, plus the summation of signal propagation time
   over all episodes of transmission between forwarding nodes.
   Determination of these values is an implementation matter.) If the

I get that determination of these times will depend on the CLA(s) in use, but it sounds like we are making a hard requirement that an accurate value with microseconds precision is available?  That seems like a pretty stringent requirement to place on the underlying transport technologies.

	We're not requiring any particular degree of accuracy; all we're requiring is representation in microseconds.

   bundle's creation time is zero, then the bundle MUST contain exactly
   one (1) occurrence of this type of block; otherwise, the bundle MAY
   contain at most one (1) occurrence of this type of block.  A bundle
   MUST NOT contain multiple occurrences of the bundle age block, as
   this could result in processing anomalies.

I'm a bit confused at the formal state of this extension block type.  Up in Section 4.3 we said that not all nodes will implement processing or production of extension blocks, but this text is in the core spec and says that this extension block MUST be present under some conditions.  Is this implicitly predicated on the implementation in question supporting Bundle Age, or is it a hard requirement?

	It's a hard requirement.  If the creation time is zero, the Bundle Age block must be present; in this case, the implementation no longer has the option to omit procedures for processing the Bundle Age block.  Other implementations, that never set creation time to zero, do have that option.

Section 4.3.3

Where do we discuss the consequences of nodes failing to implement the Hop Count extension block (as is apparently allowed by Section 4.3)?

	We don't discuss those consequences.  We think the implementer will probably be able to figure them out, i.e., the node lacks the safety mechanism discussed in the second paragraph of 4.3.3.

   unsigned integer. A bundle MAY contain at most one (1) occurrence of
   this type of block.

nit: I think this is "MAY contain this type of block" but "MUST contain at most 1 occurrence".

	Okay, let's say MAY contain one occurrence of this block but MUST NOT contain more than one.

Section 5.1

   Note that requesting status reports for any single bundle might
   easily result in the generation of (1 + (2 *(N-1))) status report

[(1 + (2 *(N-1))) might be more concisely expressed as ((2*N) -1).]


     . A "bundle reception status report" is a bundle status report
        with the "reporting node received bundle" flag set to 1.
     . A "bundle forwarding status report" is a bundle status report
        with the "reporting node forwarded the bundle" flag set to 1.
     . A "bundle delivery status report" is a bundle status report
        with the "reporting node delivered the bundle" flag set to 1.
     . A "bundle deletion status report" is a bundle status report
        with the "reporting node deleted the bundle" flag set to 1.

These strings (the flag names) appear twice in the document: here and in Section 6.1.1; neither location explicitly says that it *defines* the flag values (though the latter does seem to actually do so, in the prose).

Section 5.3

   Step 1: If the bundle's destination endpoint is an endpoint of which
   the node is a member, the bundle delivery procedure defined in
   Section 5.7 MUST be followed and for the purposes of all subsequent
   processing of this bundle at this node the node's membership in the
   bundle's destination endpoint SHALL be disavowed; specifically, even
   though the node is a member of the bundle's destination endpoint,
   the node SHALL NOT undertake to forward the bundle to itself in the
   course of performing the procedure described in Section 5.4.

The discussion so far in the document has not prepared me for the notion that a bundle would continue to be forwarded even after it has been delivered.  Please put a description somewhere of why this might occur.

	This should not be a surprise.  An endpoint can contain multiple nodes.  A node that is forwarding a bundle might be just one of the members of the bundle's destination endpoint.

(Also, nit(?): everything in this paragraph is contingent on the node being a member of the destination endpoint, right?)

	Yes.  I think the structure of the sentence makes that clear.

Section 5.4

   Step 2: The bundle protocol agent MUST determine whether or not
   forwarding is contraindicated (that is, rendered inadvisable) for
   any of the reasons listed in Figure 4. In particular:

I'm a bit confused by this wording, since Figure 4 is in essence a table of status report reason codes, i.e., values that appear on the wire in status report messages.  The contents of that table are not, logically, actual *reasons*, but rather the protocol contants.  It seems like it would be better to refer to some (possibly prose) description of the actual situations that would induce a "failure to forward" condition (and cause the generation of a report using one of those codes).

	I don't think that would make the specification more accurate or easier to read.

Furthermore, Figure 4 only contains those codes that are currently defined; future extensions can define additional codes as well.
(This is not the only place where Figure 4 is referenced as an alleged list of reasons to not forward.)

	Good catch.  Changing those references to point to the registry defined in 10.5. 

   Step 4: For each node selected for forwarding, the bundle protocol
   agent MUST invoke the services of the selected convergence layer
   adapter(s) in order to effect the sending of the bundle to that
   node. [...]

I appreciate the proper use of effect(v) -- thanks!

         Determining the time at which the bundle protocol agent
   invokes convergence layer adapter services is a BPA implementation
   matter.  Determining the time at which each convergence layer
   adapter subsequently responds to this service invocation by sending
   the bundle is a convergence-layer adapter implementation matter.

I appreciate that the actual procedures involved will depend on the CLAs and, to large extent, BPA implementation, but without giving some requirements as to what properties are needed, this protocol is incomplete.

	I disagree.  These determinations are orthogonal to the rules defining the structure of Bundle Protocol data units and the behavior of interoperating nodes; no BP procedure that is performed at node A depends in any way on the manner in which these timing decisions are made at node B.

I could make a BPA implementation that chooses to never invoke CLA services and that would comply with this text (yet would not be a usable implementation at all).

	Sure, there are lots of ways you could write BP software that is not usable.  It's not the job of this protocol specification to advise you against all of those possible errors.

     . If the bundle contains a data label extension block (to be
        defined in a future document) then that data label value MAY
        identify procedures for determining the order in which

This doesn't feel like it needs to be a normative "MAY" vs. descriptive "may".

	Another reviewer has objected to this paragraph, so it is deleted.

     . If the bundle has a bundle age block, as defined in 4.3.2.
        above, then at the last possible moment before the CLA
        initiates conveyance of the bundle via the CL protocol the
        bundle age value MUST be increased by the difference between
        the current time and the time at which the bundle was received
        (or, if the local node is the source of the bundle, created).

This does not seem to account for the transmission time from the previous node to this one, which was a required component in the definition of the bundle age.

	Right, this is not a complete description of how to process the Bundle Age block; that's in 4.3.2.

   In that event, processing proceeds from Step 4 of Section 5.4.

[This is Section 5.4, so this is self-referential.]

	It's pointing from Step 5 of 5.4 to Step 4 of 5.4.

   If completion of the data sending procedures by all selected
   convergence layer adapters HAS resulted in successful forwarding of

["HAS" is not a BCP 14 keyword.]

	Does that mean we're not allowed to write it in all caps for emphasis?

   the bundle, or if it has not but the bundle protocol agent does not
   choose to initiate another attempt to forward the bundle, then:
   [...]
        endpoint ID. The reason code on this bundle forwarding status
        report MUST be "no additional information".

It's kind of weird to use "no additional information" for both the "success"
case and the "I just decided not to" case.

	And yet it's true: there is no additional information.

Section 5.4.1

   Otherwise, when -- at some future time - the forwarding of this

nit: two hyphens for the second em dash.

	Thanks!

Section 5.6

Why is "Block unintelligible" used for both CRC failures and "extension not implemented"?

	Because in both cases the block is unintelligible.

Section 5.8

I suggest to replace "fragmented bundle" with "bundle being fragmented", for clarity.

	"Fragmented bundle" is defined clearly.  I think its subsequent use is then clear.

     . Beyond these rules, replication of extension blocks in the
        fragments is an implementation matter.

It seems prudent to give some indication of how the BPsec blocks are managed across fragmentation.

	Yes, in the BPsec specification.

Section 5.9

   If the concatenation -- as informed by fragment offsets and payload
   lengths -- of the payloads of all previously received fragments with

nit: talking about this as "concatenation of all fragment payloads" is a bit risky, since we admit the possibility of overlapping fragments; would it be better to talk about "recovering the full application-data-unit-length byte array by inserting fragment contents at the indicated offsets"?

	I see what you're saying.  I think any reasonable implementer will understand what is meant, but I agree that the language is not strictly accurate.  Let's say "the non-overlapping portions of the payloads of all previously received fragments <etc>".

     . This byte array -- the reassembled application data unit --
        MUST replace the payload of this fragment.
     . The "Reassembly pending" retention constraint MUST be removed
        from every other fragment whose payload is a subset of the
        reassembled application data unit.

Why is the last-received fragment special that it's payload is replaced by the entire payload?  Wouldn't it make more sense to promote the fragment with offset zero, since that is guaranteed to have the right extension blocks?

	Because those other fragments might have been discarded; all we need to retain is their payloads.  The extension blocks that need to be "right" should have been replicated in all fragments.

Section 6.1.1

There's a lot of nested arrays here; some examples would really help clarify the structure.

   Each item of the bundle status information array SHALL be a bundle
   status item represented as a CBOR array; the number of elements in
   each such array SHALL be either 2 (if the value of the first item of
   this bundle status item is 1 AND the "Report status time" flag was

["AND" is not a BCP 14 keyword]

It's somewhat surprising to have several of the reason codes in the figure that appear with no accompanying prose discussion of when they might be used.

With the presence of a "traffic pared" report code, one wonders if it might be worth defining a mechanism to consolidate multiple status reports, so that one might report (e.g.) paring several bundles in a single status report.

	Interesting idea, but I don't think the benefit would justify the additional complexity.

Section 6.2

   Step 1: The administrative record must be constructed. If the
   administrative record references a bundle and the referenced bundle
   is a fragment, the administrative record MUST contain the fragment
   offset and fragment length.

To be clear: this is normative guidance that applies to all administrative record types that may be defined in the future?

	Yes, as that's the only way the administrative record can identify the subject bundle.  But "with reference to some bundle" should be removed from the sentence above, as not all administrative records are generated with reference to a particular bundle.

Section 7.2

     . sending a bundle to a bundle node that is reachable via the
        convergence layer protocol;
     . notifying the bundle protocol agent when it has concluded its
        data sending procedures with regard to a bundle;
     . delivering to the bundle protocol agent a bundle that was sent
        by a bundle node via the convergence layer protocol.

   The convergence layer service interface specified here is neither
   exhaustive nor exclusive. That is, supplementary DTN protocol
   specifications (including, but not restricted to, the Bundle
   Security Protocol [BPSEC]) may expect convergence layer adapters
   that serve BP implementations conforming to those protocols to
   provide additional services such as reporting on the transmission
   and/or reception progress of individual bundles (at completion
   and/or incrementally), retransmitting data that were lost in

How is "reporting on the transmission and/or reception progress of individual bundles" different from the bullet points above?

	Those bullet points don't say anything about transmission and/or reception progress, only completion.

Section 8

       . the Bundle Protocol (BP, RFC 5050),
       . the Bundle Protocol version 7 specification draft (version 6),

Is this still accurate?  We're on version 21 of the draft, now, not version 6, and it rather defies belief that there have been no protocol-relevant changes since version -06.  (I understand this will get removed before publication as an RFC, but it would be somewhat telling if the implementation efforts had stalled.)

	The microPCN implementation of BPv7 interoperates with the ION implementation, which is based on the current draft, so I am pretty sure their implementation efforts have not stalled.  I don't know exactly which version of the draft they're up to now.

Section 9

Should we discuss the risk that the presence of "reassembly pending"
retention constraints pose of a DoS on node storage, or do we think that's adequately covered already?

	Actually I think this points to a potentially more general problem: DOS attack or not, extremely long bundle lifetimes can threaten the operation of a BP node.  I think this is a deficiency in the specification.
	I am going to go out on a limb and insert some language into 4.2.2 authorizing a BP agent to impose a (temporary, local) lifetime override when it detects a problem along these lines, together with some language in section 9 that references this option.  If there are objections to this approach, fine, but I think some sort of mitigation is needed.

   Additionally, convergence-layer protocols that ensure authenticity
   of communication between adjacent nodes in BP network topology
   SHOULD be used where available, to minimize the ability of

"Authenticity of communication" requires some sense of identity and credentials associated thereto; with the current formulation of node identities as EID URIs, I'm not sure what sort of credentials would be used for this purpose.  Can you give some examples?

	This refers to security at the convergence (transport) layer under BP, so I guess TLS would be an example.

   different blocks.  One possible variation is to sign and/or encrypt
   blocks using symmetric keys securely formed by Diffie-Hellman
   procedures (such as EKDH) using the public and private keys of the
   sending and receiving nodes.  For this purpose, the key distribution
   problem reduces to the problem of trustworthy delay-tolerant
   distribution of public keys, a current research topic.

It's important to inject some fresh entropy when using static-static DH for key generation, as otherwise the problems from cryptographic key reuse become basically unbearable.

	This is another paragraph that is being deleted per objections from another reviewer.

Section 10.1

Technically we're codepoint squatting for the new allocations here (unless we say that these are "suggested values"), in a specification-required registry.  I assume the experts (as authors/shepherd) are aware of this work and would not allocate the requested codepoints to another document, though, so I am not making this a Discuss point.

   |     6    |     4 | Payload Confidentiality Blk | [RFC6257]     |

We already have rows that spill over to another line; spelling out "Block"
as is done in the current registry contents seems best.

	Okay.

Section 10.3

Why is RFC-to-be listed as a reference for bits 7-13 when the applicable version is only 6 (not 7)?

	Because we say that those bits are Reserved in 4.1.3.

Section 10.5

[same note about codepoint-squatting]

   |     6,7 |        5 | Destination endpoint ID          |[RFC5050],|

   |         |          |    unintelligible                |RFC-to-be |

The current wording is "Destination endpoint ID unavailable", so this is requesting a content change.

	Good catch, will fix.

   |     6,7 |        8 | Block unintelligible             |[RFC6255],|

   |         |          |                                  |RFC-to-be |

The registry currently shows RFC 5050 as a reference, not RFC 6255.

	Okay.

   |     6   |      255 | Reserved                         |[RFC6255] |

Not also RFc-to-be?

	Okay.

Section 10.6

   The Bundle Protocol has a URI scheme type field - an unsigned
   integer of undefined length - for which IANA is requested to create

(All CBOR unsigned integers are of "indefinite" (variable) length.  Also note that RFC 7049 prefers to use "indefinite length" over "undefined length", but also that 7049 does not use "indefinite length" for integers.)

    |            1 | dtn                         | RFC-to-be         |

    |            2 | ipn                         | [RFC6260]         |

Why is "ipn" left with RFC6260 as the reference even though we are updating its registration in this document just as we are for "dtn"?

	Sure, adding RFC-to-be.

Section 10.7 (and with minimal changes, 10.8)

   dtn-hier-part = "//" node-name name-delim demux ; a path-rootless

Is there supposed to be more (or less) to that comment?

	No.

        receives the bundle.  In both cases (and indeed in all bundle
        processing), the node that receives a bundle should verify its
        authenticity and validity before operating on it in any way.

How is this possible in the absence of BPSEC?  Does this imply a recommendation or requirement to implement BPSEC?

	Not necessarily.  Convergence-layer security might be sufficient.

Section 11.1

   [BPSEC] Birrane, E., "Bundle Security Protocol Specification", Work
   In Progress, October 2015.

I agree with the directorate reviewer that we need to give a more concrete reference here (e.g., draft-ietf-dtn-bpsec)

	Done.

Section 11.2

The way in which we reference [UTC] is arguably normative.

	Fine with me, as long as it passes the nits check.

Appendix B

   start = bundle / #6.55799(bundle)

This is the tag for "self-describe [sic] CBOR" per RFC 7049; did Carsten make any indication that a more specific tag could/should be allocated for BP?

	None that I recall.

   ; The root bundle array

   bundle = [primary-block, *extension-block, payload-block]

I see that CDDL does not have provisions for noting indefinite- vs.
definite-length encoding, so a comment here might be in order.

   bundleflagbits = &(

     reserved: 21,
     [...]

RFC 8610 seems to suggest that omitting reserved bits may be appropriate (to disallow them from being set within this CDDL model).  (Similarly for the
blockflagbits.)