Deterlab Tutorial CS 285 Network Security

What is Deterlab? Deterlab is a security-enhanced experimental infrastructure (based on Emulab) that supports repeatable medium-scale cyber security experiments. You can have control of a pool of real PC experimental nodes that are assigned, interconnected with high-speed links in a nearly-arbitrary topologies, loaded with software and monitored remotely. Doesn’t it sound cool?!

How does Deterlab work? The software running Deterlab will load operating system images onto free nodes (rebooting the machine), reconfigure programmable switches to create VLANs according to the specified topology, then execute specified scripts, and/or install rpm files, etc. Every experiment node has at least two interfaces, connected to both “Control network” (route control info and config signals, fixed ip addresses) and “Experiment network” (route your experiment traffic)

Start an experiment Login to Deterlab using your account. Load a NS file specifying the network topology or use GUI to generate it. An invisible node will be added between two nodes to simulate their link delay, loss, etc. set ns [new Simulator] source tb_compat.tcl set nodeA [$ns node] set nodeB [$ns node] set nodeC [$ns node] Set nodeD [$ns node] set link0 [$ns duplex-link $nodeB $nodeA 30Mb 50ms DropTail] tb-set-link-loss $link set lan0 [$ns make-lan "$nodeD $nodeC $nodeB " 100Mb 0ms] $ns rtproto Static $ns run

Control an experiment Swap in experiment: wait for several minutes, until notification from or webpage. View experiment configuration information. Perform your assignment via accessing experimental nodes. Save your work at HOME directory on experimental nodes (explained later). After you are done with experiment, always swap out the experiment to relinquish physical resources. Don’t “terminate” the experiment unless you don’t want to repeat it again.

Experiment Config Info Qualified Name: the “control interface” of experimental nodes. It will change with different “swap in” Physical: actual allocation for your experiment. It will change every time you swap in your experiment. IP/Mask: IP addresses for your specified experiment network. Refer to other nodes in your Experiment using IP address. Don’t use Qualified Name or Physical. Otherwise, the traffic goes thru “Control network”, not “Experiment Network”.

Access experiment nodes ssh (Secure Shell) to users.deterlab.net using your account, which is the “Control Server” for your experiment. Then ssh to other experimental nodes. eg. “ssh pc61 or “ssh nodeA.myexp.myproj.emulab.net” All your files/data can be uploaded and stored at your HOME directory at: users.deterlab.net. They are all automatically visible to all experimental nodes via NFS. Save your work at HOME directory at experimental nodes, also visible to your control node. They all map to one identify place. Make sure you save your work and there is no confliction among your saved work before you swap out your experiment. Note: every time you swap in, the machine will change, which will affect your software configuration and requires you reinstall those software. You can create an image, which can be automatically loaded when the machine is booted. (refer to:

References Questions?