Community-Lab introduction

- A testbed consists of a set of nodes managed by the same server.
  - Server managed by testbed admins.
  - Network and node managed by CN members.
  - Node admins must adhere to testbed terms and conditions.
  - This decouples testbed management from infrastructure ownership and mgmt.
- Testbed management traffic uses a tinc mesh VPN:
  - Avoids problems with firewalls and private networks in nodes.
  - Mgmt network uses IPv6 to avoid address scarcity and incompatibility
    between CNs.
  - Short-lived mgmt connections make components mostly autonomous and
    tolerant to link instability.
- Gateways allow a testbed to span multiple CNs.
  - Bridging the mgmt net over external means (e.g. FEDERICA, the Internet).
  - Gateways can route the management network to the Internet.

- A researcher runs the experiments of a slice in slivers each running in a
  different node.

** Nodes, slices and slivers
# Diagram: Slices and slivers, two or three nodes with a few slivers on them,
# each with a color identifying it with a slice.)
- These concepts are inspired in PlanetLab.
................................................................................
# Node simplified diagram, hover to interesting parts.
- The community device
  - Completely normal CN device, so existing ones can be used.
  - Routes traffic between the CN and the node's wired local network (which
    runs no routing protocol).
- The research device
  - Usually more powerful than CD, since experiments run here.
  - Separating CD/RD makes integration with any CN simple and safe:
    - Little CONFINE-specific tampering with CN infrastructure.?!
    - Little CN-specific configuration for RDs.?!
    - Misbehaving experiments can't crash CN infrastructure.
  - Runs OpenWrt firmware customized by CONFINE.
  - Slivers are implemented as Linux containers.
    - Lightweight virtualization supported mainstream.
    - Provides a familiar and flexible env for researchers.
  - Direct interfaces allow experiments to bypass the CD when interacting with

    the CN.
  - Control software
    - Uses LXC tools on containers to enforce resource limitation, resource
      isolation and node stability.
    - Uses traffic control, filtering and anonymization to ensure network
      stability, isolation and privacy (partialy implemented).
- The recovery device (not implemented) can force a remote hardware reboot of
  the RD in case it hangs.  It also helps with upgrade and recovery.

- A testbed consists of a set of nodes managed by the same server.
  - Server managed by testbed admins.
  - Network and node managed by CN members.
  - Node admins must adhere to testbed terms and conditions.
  - This decouples testbed management from infrastructure ownership and mgmt.
- Testbed management traffic uses a tinc mesh VPN:
  - Avoids problems with firewalls and private networks in nodes.
  - IPv6 is used to avoid address scarcity and incompatibility between CNs.

  - Link instability is tolerated by using short-lived mgmt connections.

- Gateways allow a testbed to span multiple CNs.
  - Connecting the mgmt net over external means (e.g. FEDERICA, the Internet).

  - Gateways can make the management network available to the Internet.
- A researcher runs the experiments of a slice in slivers each running in a
  different node.

** Nodes, slices and slivers
# Diagram: Slices and slivers, two or three nodes with a few slivers on them,
# each with a color identifying it with a slice.)
- These concepts are inspired in PlanetLab.
................................................................................
# Node simplified diagram, hover to interesting parts.
- The community device
  - Completely normal CN device, so existing ones can be used.
  - Routes traffic between the CN and the node's wired local network (which
    runs no routing protocol).
- The research device
  - Usually more powerful than CD, since experiments run here.

  - A separated RD minimizes tampering with CN infrastructure.

    - Also experiments can't crash the CD.
  - Runs OpenWrt firmware customized by CONFINE.
  - Slivers are implemented as lightweight Linux containers.

    - Provide a familiar and flexible env for researchers.

  - Direct interfaces allow low-level interaction of experiments with the CN
    bypassing the CD.
  - Control software
    - Uses LXC tools on containers to enforce resource limitation, resource
      isolation and node stability.
    - Uses traffic control, filtering and anonymization to ensure network
      stability, isolation and privacy (partialy implemented).
- The recovery device (not implemented) can force a remote hardware reboot of
  the RD in case it hangs.  It also helps with upgrade and recovery.