Bundle in Bundle Encapsulation Overview

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The aim of this paper is to introduce Bundle in Bundle Encapsulation (BIBE). BIBE is an experimental extension of the Bundle Protocol (BP), the pillar at the foundation of the Delay-/Disruption- Tolerant Networking architecture, whose use is planned in next space mission to Moon, and, in longer terms, to build an Interplanetary network. Among BIBE features, the paper analyzes in detail the optional BIBE retransmission mechanism, which should offer all the advantages of the Custody Transfer option that was present in previous versions of BP, but without its problems. BIBE applications are potentially so numerous that they cannot all be examined in one paper, thus here the focus is on those that are non-security related, such as BIBE retransmission on both unidirectional and space links, transient QoS, and transient “critical” forwarding. All these cases have been exercised using the latest version of ION, the DTN suite maintained by NASA JPL, by means of an enhanced version of a pre-existing test program. The paper concludes with a detailed study of an example of BIBE traffic, based on the use of the Wireshark network analyzer, for which a specific BIBE dissector was designed by the authors.