Subject: [dtn] bundle manifest

From: "Burleigh, Scott C (312B)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 18:13:22 +0000

I believe the only other remaining technical issue for the new Bundle Protocol specification ("bpbis") is this: is there a need for some sort of bundle manifest (a.k.a. "inventory") indicating what blocks were originally present in the bundle at the time of its creation and, if so, what form should that mechanism take?

In the course of discussing this question during today's virtual meeting, we arrived at the following candidate resolution:

1.	Add a flag to the primary block (a new Bundle Processing Control Flag, I think) that would indicate whether or not a Manifest extension block is present in the bundle.

2.	Define the new Manifest extension block in a separate specification, to ensure that it achieves the intended purpose.  The Manifest block would be inserted by the bundle's source node upon bundle creation.

3.	To protect the integrity of the Manifest block, a BIB signing the Manifest in the key of the source node would accompany the Manifest block.

Provided the primary block is also protected by a BIB, it would be impossible to delete or modify a Manifest in a way that would be undetectable by the destination node.

Do we all agree that the bpbis specification should be modified per point (1) above?  Or is some other approach better?

Scott