DETERLAB.md

Navigation: DEDIS :: Onet :: Simulation :: Deterlab

Deterlab Simulation

The first implementation of a simulation (even before localhost) was a deterlab simulation that allowed to run CoSi on https://deterlab.net. Deterlab is a state-of-the-art scientific computing facility for cyber-security researchers engaged in research, development, discovery, experimentation, and testing of innovative cyber-security technology. It allows to reserve computers and define the network between those. Using onet, it is very simple to pass from a localhost simulation to a simulation using Deterlab.

Before a successful Deterlab simulation, you need to

1. be signed up at Deterlab. If you're working with DEDIS, ask your responsible for the Project Name and the Group Name.
2. create a simulation defined by an NS-file. You can find a simple NS-file here: [deterlab_users/cothority.ns]
3. swap the simulation in

For point 3. it is important of course that Deterlab has enough machines available at the moment of your experiment. If machines are missing, you might change the NS-file to reference machines that are available. Attention: different machines have different capabilities and can run more or less nodes, depending on the power of the machine.

Supposing you have the points 1., 2., 3., solved, you can go on to the next step.

Preparing automatic login

For easier simulation, you should prepare your ssh client to allow automatic login to the remote server. If you login to the https://deterlab.net website, go to My DeterLab (on top), then Profile (one of the tabs in the middle), and finally chose Edit SSH keys from the left. Now you can add your public ssh-key to the list of allowed keys. Verify everything is running by checking that you're not asked for your password when doing

ssh username@users.deterlab.net

Running a Deterlab Simulation

If you have a successful localhost simulation, it is very easy to run it on Deterlab. Make sure the experiment is swapped in, then you can start it with:

go build && ./simul -platform deterlab simul.toml

Of course you'll need to adjust the simul and simul.toml to fit your experiment. When running for the first time, the simulation will ask you for your user-name, project and experiment. For the hostname of deterlab and the monitor address, you can accept the default values. It will store all this in the deter.toml file, where you can also change it. Or you delete the file, if you want to enter the information again.

Monitoring Port

During the experiment, your computer will play the role as the organizer and start all the experiments on the remote deterlab network. This means, that your computer needs to be online during the whole experiment.

To communicate with Deterlab, the simulation starts a ssh-tunnel to deterlab.net where all information from the simulation are received. As there might be more than one person using deterlab, and all users need to go through users.deterlab.net, you might want to change the port-number you're using. It's as easy as:

./simul -platform deterlab -mport 10002 simult.toml

This will use port 10002 to communicate with deterlab. Be sure to increment by 2, so only use even numbers.

Oversubscription

If you have more nodes than available servers, the simulation will put multiple cothority-nodes on the same server. When creating the Tree in Simulation.Setup, it will make sure that any parent-children connection will go through the network, so that every communication between a parent and a child will go through the bandwidth and timing restrictions.

Unfortunately this means that not all nodes will have these restrictions, and in the case of a broadcast with oversubscription, some nodes might communicate directly with the other nodes. If you need a fully restricted network, you need to use Mininet