Bundle Protocol Specification
RFC 5050
Network Working Group K. Scott
Request for Comments: 5050 The MITRE Corporation
Category: Experimental S. Burleigh
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 2007
Bundle Protocol Specification
Status of This Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
IESG Note
This RFC is not a candidate for any level of Internet Standard. The
IETF disclaims any knowledge of the fitness of this RFC for any
purpose and in particular notes that the decision to publish is not
based on IETF review for such things as security, congestion control,
or inappropriate interaction with deployed protocols. The RFC Editor
has chosen to publish this document at its discretion. Readers of
this document should exercise caution in evaluating its value for
implementation and deployment. See RFC 3932 for more information.
Abstract
This document describes the end-to-end protocol, block formats, and
abstract service description for the exchange of messages (bundles)
in Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN).
This document was produced within the IRTF's Delay Tolerant
Networking Research Group (DTNRG) and represents the consensus of all
of the active contributors to this group. See http://www.dtnrg.org
for more information.
Scott & Burleigh Experimental [Page 1]
RFC 5050 Bundle Protocol Specification November 2007
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Requirements Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Service Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Implementation Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3. Services Offered by Bundle Protocol Agents . . . . . . . . 11
4. Bundle Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1. Self-Delimiting Numeric Values (SDNVs) . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2. Bundle Processing Control Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.3. Block Processing Control Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.4. Endpoint IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.5. Formats of Bundle Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.5.1. Primary Bundle Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.5.2. Canonical Bundle Block Format . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.5.3. Bundle Payload Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.6. Extension Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.7. Dictionary Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5. Bundle Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.1. Generation of Administrative Records . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2. Bundle Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.3. Bundle Dispatching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.4. Bundle Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.4.1. Forwarding Contraindicated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.4.2. Forwarding Failed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.5. Bundle Expiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.6. Bundle Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5.7. Local Bundle Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.8. Bundle Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.9. Application Data Unit Reassembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.10. Custody Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.10.1. Custody Acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.10.2. Custody Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.11. Custody Transfer Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.12. Custody Transfer Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.13. Bundle Deletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.14. Discarding a Bundle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.15. Canceling a Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.16. Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6. Administrative Record Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.1. Administrative Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.1.1. Bundle Status Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6.1.2. Custody Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.2. Generation of Administrative Records . . . . . . . . . . . 44
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