Testbed

Container orchestration for the Global Named Data Networking Testbed.

Overview

All services are run with Docker Compose and pull automatically built images from upstream repositories. A cron job in the master container polls this Git repository and deploys changes automatically.

The various components are:

framework: Template rendering (Jinja2) and service management (Docker Compose) framework
host_vars: Host-specific configuration
templates: Jinja2 templates for service configuration
scripts: Shell scripts and cron jobs
anchors: Testbed trust anchor certificates

The global services configuration is defined in docker-compose.yml and config.yml.

Usage

A recent version of Docker must be installed on the target node.
Clone this repository (conventionally to /home/ndnops/testbed).
Define secrets in a .env file in the root directory of this repo..
Add a MANAGED_HOST variable to the .env, e.g. MANAGED_HOST=UCLA.
Define host-specific Docker Compose profiles as COMPOSE_PROFILES in .env.
Run docker-compose up -d to start the node.

The master node starts first and renders the templates. After this, the master runs a cron job to poll the Git repository.

A cron job is required on the host for some tasks. Make sure the cron user is present in the docker group.

*/6 * * * * /bin/bash /home/ndnops/testbed/scripts/cron-host.sh

Certificate Management

The master container will automatically attempt to get certificates initiall if they don't exist. Certificates will not be automatically renewed. To renew certificates, run the following command:

# Renew certificates
docker compose exec master bash /testbed/dist/ndncert/renew.sh --force
docker compose exec master bash /testbed/dist/nlsr/renew.sh --force
docker compose exec master bash /testbed/dist/ndn-python-repo/renew.sh --force

# Restart containers
docker compose restart nlsr ndncert serve-certs ndn-python-repo

To get the list of currently installed certificates, run

docker compose exec -e HOME=/testbed/dist/ndncert master ndnsec list -c
docker compose exec -e HOME=/testbed/dist/nlsr master ndnsec list -c
docker compose exec -e HOME=/testbed/dist/ndn-python-repo master ndnsec list -c

# For root CA only
docker compose exec -e HOME=/testbed/root-ca-home master ndnsec list -c

Development

For debugging and development, you can define DEBUG=1 in your .env file. This will prevent the dist folder from auto-rendering and disable git polling. You can then use docker compose as usual to manage the containers.

Some helpful bash aliases are provided in bash_aliases.sh for executing ndn tools inside the running containers.

source bash_aliases.sh
echo -e "\nsource $(pwd)/bash_aliases.sh\n" >> ~/.bashrc  # make it permanent

# Now you can use nfdc or ndn-tools for debugging
nfdc status report
ndnpeek /ndn/edu/ucla/ping/test | ndn-dissect

The master service runs internal cron jobs for polling. You can trigger these manually during debugging (only when not in DEBUG mode).

# cron-master pulls the git repo and restarts containers if required
docker compose exec -e "SKIP_SLEEP=1" master bash /testbed/scripts/cron-master.sh

# cron-status regenerates status json
docker compose exec -e "SKIP_SLEEP=1" master bash /testbed/scripts/cron-status.sh

Unattended Upgrades

Set up unattended upgrades on the host to automatically install security updates.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y unattended-upgrades

The following configuration is recommended:

# /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
        "${distro_id}ESMApps:${distro_codename}-apps-security";
        "${distro_id}ESM:${distro_codename}-infra-security";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-proposed";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-backports";
        "Docker:${distro_codename}";
};

Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Kernel-Packages "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-New-Unused-Dependencies "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true";

Enable automatic updates in the following file:

# /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "7";

After this, enable the service and run the initial upgrade: