06 Delay Tolerant Networking and Bundle Forwarding

06 — Delay-Tolerant Networking & Bundle Forwarding

Corresponding Specifications: sys-arch/06-dtn-store-carry-forward-architecture.md
Key Crates: crates/siar-dtn-bundle, crates/siar-dtn, crates/siar-storage

---

1. Store-Carry-Forward Dissemination Model

When two nodes are physically partitioned with no direct radio path and no Internet relay, SIAR utilizes Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN). Any participating device (or solar-powered repeater) acts as a physical data mule:

[Sender Alice] 
      |  (BLE / Wi-Fi direct transfer)
      v
[Carrier Mule Bob]  ==== (Bob walks/drives 5 km) ====> [Carrier Mule Bob]
                                                               |  (Radio transfer)
                                                               v
                                                      [Recipient Charlie]

---

2. Bundle Wire Structure & Privacy Design

Bundles are immutable, self-contained protocol units encapsulated with forwarding metadata. To preserve metadata privacy across untrusted intermediate carriers, destination and source identities are masked using unlinkable RouteToken identifiers rather than raw public keys:

pub struct DtnBundle {
    pub bundle_id: BundleId,               // BLAKE3 deterministic hash of envelope
    pub source: RouteToken,                // Unlinkable rotating route token
    pub destination: DtnDestination,       // Unlinkable RouteToken or MulticastTopic
    pub created_at: Timestamp,             // Monotonic Unix timestamp
    pub expires_at: Timestamp,             // Enforced TTL expiration time
    pub hop_limit: u8,                     // Decremented at each hop
    pub replication_budget: u8,            // Remaining copies for binary spray
    pub custody_requested: bool,           // Hop-by-hop custody transfer flag
    pub priority: DtnPriority,             // Emergency, Interactive, Bulk, Background
    pub storage_class: StorageClass,       // Flash persistent vs RAM ephemeral
    pub payload: PayloadReference,         // Typed ref: EventId, BlobId, or Inline bytes
    pub integrity: BundleIntegrity,        // Ed25519 signature & transcript hash
}

---

3. Forwarding Strategy Engine (forwarding.rs)

Implemented in siar-dtn-bundle, [forwarding::decide_forwarding] selects the optimal routing decision based on link type, peer capabilities, and forwarding class:

graph TD
    BundleArrival[Inbound DTN Bundle] --> CheckDest{Is Peer Final Destination?}
    CheckDest -->|Yes| DirectDeliver[Direct Delivery Preemption: Transmit & Deliver]
    CheckDest -->|No| StrategySelect{Evaluate ForwardingClass}
    
    StrategySelect -->|DirectOnly| HoldStorage[Hold in Storage until Destination in Direct Range]
    StrategySelect -->|GatewayPreference| CheckGateway{Is Peer an Internet Gateway?}
    CheckGateway -->|Yes| FwdGateway[Forward Bundle to Gateway Node]
    CheckGateway -->|No| HoldOrSpray[Fallback Hold / Conservative Local Mule]
    StrategySelect -->|SprayAndWait| SprayCheck{Budget > 1?}
    SprayCheck -->|Yes| BinarySplit[Binary Spray: Share half budget with encountered peer]
    SprayCheck -->|No (Wait Phase)| DirectOnlyWait[Retain sole copy; wait for final destination]

Loading

Spray-and-Wait Algorithm (Binary Spraying)

1. Spray Phase: The sender initializes the bundle with $L$ copies (e.g., $L = 8$).
2. When the carrier encounters a new node $M$ that does not have the bundle:
   • The carrier gives $\lfloor L / 2 \rfloor$ copies to node $M$.
   • The carrier retains $\lceil L / 2 \rceil$ copies.
3. Wait Phase: When $L = 1$, the node will only transmit the bundle directly to the final destination.
4. Outcome: Achieves delivery delays comparable to Epidemic routing while consuming only a tiny fraction of total network transmissions.

---

4. Custody Transfer & Anti-Entropy Receipts

To guarantee delivery without accumulating unbounded bundle duplicates across the mesh:

1. Custody Acceptance: When an intermediate mule accepts custody of a bundle, it sends a signed CustodyReceipt back to the forwarder.
2. Release of Responsibility: The forwarder can now safely prune the bundle from its high-priority storage.
3. Delivery Tombstones: When the destination node receives and decrypts the bundle, it emits a DeliveryTombstone. As the tombstone gossips across the mesh, mules purge the corresponding bundle from local cache.