Re: [dtn] custody transfer I-D

[Marius Feldmann <[e-mail]>]

Hi Scott,

with your approach we can state that a specific node on the path should
take the custody for a specific bundle (not just fragments created from
it). Thus, it renders it possible to define well-known nodes that
guarantee to take the original bundle (even if it has been fragmented
between the sender and this well-known node) and confirm custody for it.
As far as I get it, that is the basic point.

Let us assume we only have the proposed option available. How do we
transfer custody to an unknown node on the path? Thus, to transmit a
bundle with the requirement "Please, anybody on the path, take custody
for this bundle." or maybe even an extended variant: "Please, anybody on
the path, take custody for the whole or partial data encapsulated in
this bundle.".

I guess we need - at least additionally to the approach proposed by you
- protocol support to cover this case.

Marius


On 23.06.2017 02:04, Burleigh, Scott C (312B) wrote:
>
> Hi.  A few minutes ago I posted an Internet Draft
> (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-burleigh-dtn-bibect/)
> presenting an idea I had a couple of months ago for cleanly breaking
> the Custody Transfer procedures out of BP and into a separate document.
>
>  
>
> In a nutshell, I suggest that we standardize the Bundle-in-Bundle
> Encapsulation (BIBE) convergence-layer protocol and build Custody
> Transfer into it, making BIBE a reliable CL.
>
>  
>
> I am confident that this sounds insane to most people who are reading
> this email.  But I think I can actually make a fairly strong case for it.
>
>  
>
> I’ve been claiming for some time that reliable convergence-layer
> protocols (TCP, LTP) are the best way to provide end-to-end delivery
> reliability in DTN.  Custody transfer is not as good because (a) there
> are no partial NAKs, so the only option on any data loss, no matter
> how small, is to re-send the entire bundle (which may be hundreds of
> megabytes); (b) there are no negative ACKs that indicate data loss
> (custody refusal actually indicates successful data arrival, just at
> an incapable forwarding point), so recovery from data loss happens
> only when a timer expires at the current custodian; (c) but it is in
> the general case impossible to set the timeout value for that timer
> because no node is ever required to take custody.  You never know (in
> the general case) who the next custodian will be, so you have no idea
> what the round-trip time to the next custodian is.
>
>  
>
> At the same time, Keith Scott has been saying that some important use
> cases need custody transfer instead of reliable CLAs because no
> suitable reliable convergence-layer protocol exists: the forward path
> is unidirectional, the return path is very different, and
> delay-tolerant hop-by-hop forwarding is needed in one or both.
>
>  
>
> Suppose we are both exactly right.  Let’s make custodial
> retransmission a property of a (now reliable) convergence-layer
> protocol that performs delay-tolerant hop-by-hop forwarding, because
> the CL’s protocol data units are bundles.  Like BIBE.
>
>  
>
> In the specification I just posted, BIBE CT works in much the same way
> that CT works in RFC 5050, only a little simpler.  The outbound bundle
> forms the payload of an encapsulating bundle destined for the next
> custodian, which might – but would not have to – be the next BP node
> on the end-to-end path.  On arrival of the encapsulating bundle at the
> destination node, the CLA at that node extracts the payload (the
> original bundle) and decides whether or not to accept custody.  It
> sends a custody signal back to the sending CLA, either accepting or
> refusing custody, and on acceptance it passes the payload bundle up to
> the BPA for processing as usual (forwarding, delivery, etc.).  The
> sending CLA receives and processes custody signals, destroys its copy
> of the cited original bundle upon custody acceptance, and
> re-encapsulates and re-transmits the original bundle upon either
> custody refusal or timer expiration prior to receipt of a responding
> custody signal.
>
>  
>
> I think this formulation offers a lot of advantages:
>
> ·        The problem of custodial bundle fragmentation by a
> non-custodial forwarding node goes away: no node other than the next
> custodian ever sees the encapsulated bundle, therefore cannot fragment
> it.  The encapsulating (BIBE) bundle might get fragmented, absolutely,
> but it gets reassembled at the destination (the next custodian) before
> any CT processing occurs.  So all of the complexity of fragmentary
> custody transfer disappears.
>
> ·        Custody transfer suddenly becomes compatible with multi-point
> delivery.  If you use bundle multicast as prototyped in ION, then each
> copy of the bundle that is forwarded through the multicast tree is
> (naturally) conveyed using a point-to-point convergence-layer transfer
> – which could easily be a BIBE transfer with CT requested.
>
> ·        Looking out a little further, knowing the identity of the
> next custodian means that CT can take advantage of bundle delivery
> time estimation mechanisms (which we prototyped a few years ago) to
> compute custodial retransmission timeout intervals.  So CT becomes
> more accurate and efficient as well.
>
> ·        The relationship of CT to the rest of BP becomes an extremely
> clean and simple interface, which can easily be added on to any BP
> implementation.  Implementation of CT becomes simple and self-contained.
>
> ·        Building CT into BIBE gives us a single CL protocol that can
> provide cross-domain security solutions, provide reliable
> disruption-tolerant forwarding over unidirectional links, or both. 
> And yet the protocol is extremely simple, only 13 pages.
>
>  
>
> It’s radical, but I don’t think it’s wrong.
>
>  
>
> Scott
>
>
>
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