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minimega command and control

Overview

Command and control with minimega

  • First class feature in minimega via the cc API
  • Works on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD guests
  • TCP or virtio-serial connection
  • Scales
  • File I/O
  • Process control
  • TCP tunnelling (including reverse tunnels)
  • Guest filesystem mounts (including NTFS with read/write)
  • Cluster-wide STDIO redirection (including into other VMs)

Overview

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Experimentation

An experiment is (from the perspective of the operator)

  • minimega

    • Topology definition
    • Endpoint descriptions
    • Services (OSPF, BGP, ...)
    • Data capture

  • cc

    • Endpoint behavior (process control, ...)
    • Endpoint data capture (file i/o, ...)
    • Backchannel communication
    • Connecting non-IT ephemera

Feature walkthrough

Commands, File I/O

The cc API provides a complete file and process control framework

  • Send and receive files
  • Execute/background commands
  • Filter on any field
  • Read/group responses
  • Track/kill processes

Commands, File I/O

process.mm
# send and receive files - including wildcards and directories
cc send foo
cc send my_whole_directory/*

# 'exec' waits for a process to complete before moving on to the next command
cc exec touch /root/tumbleweed

# 'background' forks the process and immediately moves on to the next command
cc background sleep 300
cc background touch /root/impatience
shell sleep 5

# A backgrounded process can be tracked and killed
cc process list foo
cc process killall sleep

# `prefix` allows for grouping like commands
cc prefix foo
cc exec hostname
shell sleep 5
cc response foo

# filter groups allows for sending commands to one or more hosts based on any field
cc prefix foo
cc filter name=foo
cc exec hostname
shell sleep 5
cc response foo

Download this example

TCP tunnels

Support for forward and reverse TCP tunnels (ie ssh -L and ssh -R style tunnels).

tunnels.mm
# create a TCP tunnel into a VM, even though it has no network!
cc tunnel foo 4444 127.0.0.1 9000
cc background nc -p 9000 -l -e /bin/sh

Download this example

Remote mountpoints

Support for guest filesystem mounts - including read/write support with windows guests.

mounts.mm
# mount guest filesystems *anywhere* on your cluster
# This supports r/w, even with windows/ntfs

shell mkdir /tmp/mount
cc mount bar /tmp/mount

Download this example

Standard I/O Redirection

Support for standard I/O redirection anywhere, including inside other guests.

plumber.mm
# create a root shell on the windows vm, and connect stdin and stdout to a host and a linux container
cc filter name=bar
cc background stdout=out_pipe stdin=in_pipe cmd.exe

Download this example

Summary

The cc API provides a first class command and control layer for minimega experiments.

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