data.rst

.. _data:

Data Packet
-----------

NDN Data packet is TLV defined as follows::

    Data ::= DATA-TLV TLV-LENGTH
               Name
               MetaInfo
               Content
               Signature

The Data packet represents some arbitrary binary data (held in the Content element) together with its Name, some additional bits of information (MetaInfo), and a digital Signature of the other three elements. The Name is the first element since all NDN packet processing starts with the name.  Signature is put at the end of the packet to ease the implementation because signature computation covers all the elements before Signature.

Name
~~~~

See :ref:`Name section <Name>` for details.

.. _MetaInfo:

MetaInfo
~~~~~~~~

.. [#f1] If ``ContentType``, ``FreshnessPeriod`` and ``FinalBlockId`` are optional, one may consider ``Metainfo`` itself should be optional. But would having all 4 parts of Data packet help simplify implementation? We leave this question to people who are more familiar with high speed implementations.

::

    MetaInfo ::= META-INFO-TYPE TLV-LENGTH
                   ContentType?
                   FreshnessPeriod?
                   FinalBlockId?

Compared with CCNx, three fields are removed: PublisherPublicKeyDigest, ExtOpt, and Timestamp for the following reasons.


- PublisherPublicKeyDigest is supposed to be used in selecting data packets signed by a particular key.
  We replace PublisherPublicKeyDigest with KeyLocator, which is part of the Signature block (see :ref:`Signature Section <Signature>`), due to the following consideration.
  First, PublisherPublicKeyDigest requires data consumer to acquire a *valid* public key, as opposed to the key locator, before sending the Interest out.
  Second, if a router is to verify the content objects, it must have other means to locate the keys first.
  Further, PublisherPublicKeyDigest may require publishers to maintain their public keys and certificates by their public key digests instead of names.

- ExtOpt was intended for extending XML-based ccnb format.  Since we are now using TLV, ExtOpt is no longer needed.

- Timestamp can be useful meta information for applications, but does not need to be processed at the network layer.
  Therefore, if desired, applications should encode such meta information as part of the content.


ContentType
+++++++++++

::

    ContentType ::= CONTENT-TYPE-TYPE TLV-LENGTH
                      nonNegativeInteger

The following ContentTypes are currently defined:

+-----------------+----------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| ContentType     | Assigned value | Description of the content                                   |
+=================+================+==============================================================+
| BLOB            | 0              | payload identified by the data name; this is the default     |
|                 |                | ContentType                                                  |
+-----------------+----------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| LINK            | 1              | another name which identifies the actual data content        |
+-----------------+----------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| KEY             | 2              | public key                                                   |
+-----------------+----------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| NACK            | 3              | application-level NACK                                       |
+-----------------+----------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+

Compared with CCNx, ENCR and GONE types are removed.
ENCR means the content is encrypted, and since the network layer should not care whether content is encrypted or not, this type is not needed.
GONE was a placeholder for implementing cache purging, however the research is yet to be carried out on how to accomplish this goal, if it is feasible to achieve, it is not included in this version of NDN specification.


FreshnessPeriod
+++++++++++++++

::

    FreshnessPeriod ::= FRESHNESS-PERIOD-TLV TLV-LENGTH
                          nonNegativeInteger

The optional FreshnessPeriod indicates how long a node should wait after the arrival of this data before marking it as stale.  The encoded value is number of milliseconds.  Note that the stale data is still valid data; the expiration of FreshnessPeriod only means that the producer may have produced newer data.

When FreshnessPeriod is omitted, the Data packet cannot be marked stale.

Each content store associates every piece of Data with a staleness bit.
The initial setting of this bit for newly-arrived content is "not stale". If the Data carries FreshnessPeriod, then after the Data has been residing in the content store for FreshnessPeriod, it will be marked as stale. This is per object staleness and local to the NDN node. Another possible way to set the staleness bit of a local content is for a local client to send a command to the local NDN daemon.

If an Interest contains MustBeFresh TLV, a Data that has the staleness bit set is not eligible to be sent in response to that Interest.
The effect is the same as if that stale Data did not exist (i.e., the Interest might be matched by some other Data in the store, or, failing that, get forwarded to other nodes).
If an exact duplicate of a stale Data arrives, the effect is the same as if the stale Data had not been present. In particular, the Data in the store is no longer stale. As a practical matter, a stale Data should be ranked high on the list of things to discard from the store when a storage quota has been reached.

FinalBlockId
++++++++++++

::

    FinalBlockId ::= FINAL-BLOCK-ID-TLV TLV-LENGTH
                          NameComponent

The optional FinalBlockId indicates the identifier of the final block
in a sequence of fragments.
It should be present in the final block itself, and may also be present in other fragments to provide advanced warning of the end to consumers.
The value here should be equal to the last explicit Name Component of the final block.


.. _Content:

Content
~~~~~~~

::

    Content ::= CONTENT-TYPE TLV-LENGTH BYTE*