LAS 3 MU´S

Dynamic Source Routing Protocol (DSRP) is designed to allow nodes to dynamically discover a source route across multiple network hops to any destination in the ad hoc network. When using source routing, each packet to be routed carries in its header the complete, ordered list of nodes through which the packet must pass. A key advantage of source routing is that intermediate hops do not need to maintain routing information in order to route the packets they receive, since the packets themselves already contain all the necessary routing information.

DSRP does not require the periodic transmission of router advertisements or link status packets, reducing the overhead of DSRP. In addition, DSRP has been designed to compute correct routes in the presence of unidirectional links.

Source routing is a routing technique in which the sender of a packet determines the complete sequence of nodes through which to forward the packet. The sender explicitly lists this path in the packet’s header, identifying each forwarding hop by the address of the next node to which the packet is to be transmitted on its way to the destination host. DSRP is broken down into three functional components: routing, route discovery, and route maintenance. Route discovery is the mechanism by which a node wishing to send a packet to a destination obtains a path to the destination. Route maintenance is the mechanism by which a node detects a break in its source route and obtains a corrected route.

To perform route discovery, the source node broadcasts a route request packet with a recorded source route listing. Each node that hears the route request forwards the request, if appropriate, adding its own address to the recorded source route in the packet. The route

request packet propagates hop-by-hop outward from the source node until either the des- tination node is found or until another node is found that can supply a route to the target. Nodes forward route requests if they are not the destination node and they are not already listed as a hop in the route. In addition, each node maintains a cache of recently received route requests and does not propagate any copies of a route request packet after the first.

All source routes learned by a node are kept (memory permitting) in a route cache, which is used to further reduce the cost of route discovery. A node may learn of routes from virtually any packet the node forwards or overhears. When a node wishes to send a packet, it examines its own route cache and performs route discovery only if no suitable source route is found.

Further, when a node receives a route request for which it has a route in its cache, it does not propagate the route request, but instead returns a route reply to the source node. The route reply contains the full concatenation of the recorded route from the source and the cached route leading to the destination.

If a route request packet reaches the destination node, the destination node returns a route reply packet to the source node with the full source to destination path listed.

Conventional routing protocols integrate route discovery with route maintenance by continuously sending periodic routing updates. If the status of a link or node changes, the periodic updates will eventually reflect the change to all other nodes, presumably resulting in the computation of new routes. However, using route discovery, there are no periodic messages of any kind from any of the mobile nodes. Instead, while a route is in use, the route maintenance procedure monitors the operation of the route and informs the sender of any routing errors.

If a node along the path of a packet detects an error, the node returns a route error packet to the sender. The route error packet contains the addresses of the nodes at both ends of the hop in error. When a route error packet is received or overheard, the hop in error is removed from any route caches and all routes that contain this hop must be truncated at that point.

There are many methods of returning a route error packet to the sender. The easiest of these, which is only applicable in networks that only use bidirectional links, is to simply reverse the route contained in the packet from the original host. If unidirectional links are used in the network, the DSRP presents several alternative methods of returning route error packets to the sender.

Route maintenance can also be performed using end-to-end acknowledgments rather than the hop-by-hop acknowledgments described above. As long as a route exists by which the two end hosts can communicate, route maintenance is possible. In this case, existing transport or application level replies or acknowledgments from the original destination, or explicitly requested network level acknowledgments, may be used to indicate the status of the node’s route to the other node.

Two sources of bandwidth overhead in DSRP are route discovery and route mainte- nance. They occur when new routes need to be discovered or when the network topology changes. However, this overhead can be reduced by employing intelligent caching tech- niques in each node at the expense of memory and CPU resources. The remaining source of bandwidth overhead is the required source route header included in every packet.

ON-DEMAND ROUTING PROTOCOLS 173

Brochet al. found DSRP to perform the best of four protocols simulated. However, Broch simulated networks of 50 nodes. As the node count increases, the detrimental effects of route discovery and maintenance can be expected to grow.

DSRP is a source-routed on-demand routing protocol. A node maintains route caches containing the source routes that it is aware of. The node updates entries in the route cache as and when it learns about new routes.

The two major phases of the protocol are route discovery and route maintenance. When the source node wants to send a packet to a destination, it looks up its route cache to determine if it already contains a route to the destination. If it finds that an unexpired route to the destination exists, then it uses this route to send the packet. But if the node does not have such a route, then it initiates the route discovery process by broadcasting a route request packet. The route request packet contains the address of the source, the destination, and a unique identification number. Each intermediate node checks whether it knows of a route to the destination. If it does not, it appends its address to the route record of the packet and forwards the packet to its neighbors. To limit the number of route requests propagated, a node processes the route request packet only if it has not already seen the packet and its address is not present in the route record of the packet.

A route reply is generated when either the destination or an intermediate node with current information about the destination receives the route request packet. A route request packet reaching such a node already contains, in its route record, the sequence of hops taken from the source to this node.

As the route request packet propagates through the network, the route record is formed. If the route reply is generated by the destination, then it places the route record from route request packet into the route reply packet. On the other hand, if the node generating the route reply is an intermediate node, then it appends its cached route to destination to the route record of route request packet and puts that into the route reply packet. To send the route reply packet, the responding node must have a route to the source. If it has a route to the source in its route cache, it can use that route. The reverse of route record can be used if symmetric links are supported. In case symmetric links are not supported, the node can initiate route discovery to source and piggyback the route reply on this new route request.

DSRP uses two types of packets for route maintenance: Route Error packet and Acknowledgements. When a node encounters a fatal transmission problem at its data link layer, it generates a Route Error packet. When a node receives a Route Error packet, it removes the hop in error from its route cache. All routes that contain the hop in error are truncated at that point. Acknowledgment packets are used to verify the correct operation of the route links. This also includes passive acknowledgments in which a node hears the next hop forwarding the packet along the route.