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Wideareaaup

Wide-area Nodes, Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

Wide-area Nodes, Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

Emulab's wide-area effort includes 50+ (and growing) PCs scattered around world at more than 30 sites, connected via commodity internet, internet2, DSL and cable modem. Researchers wishing to run experiments on the "real" internet can request permission to use the wide-area nodes. Similar to experiments using just local Emulab nodes, you can setup network overlays and automated traffic generation. However, certain policies and restrictions are in place, so please review these in case your needs conflict.

  • All access to wide-area nodes is via ssh. There are no passwords stored on wide-area nodes so you must upload your public keys via Emulab's web interface, and use an authentication agent to forward your private keys.
  • Access is currently non-root, without the ability to spoof or sniff traffic.
  • No non-congestion controlled flows, no big transfers unless pre-cleared or during really off hours, and no contact between the wide-area nodes and unapproved external nodes (i.e. no pinging or tracerouting to all points on the globe). We haven't had any problems with external researchers on the nodes we've opened up thus far, including a cable modem, but we'll keep a very careful eye on it.
  • Several of the nodes (nc-cable, mediaone-ma, and msanders) are on residential low bandwidth links. No high bandwidth flows except during off (late night) hours.
  • No hacking attempts of the wide-area nodes or external nodes!
  • No sending mail from the wide-area nodes.
  • No processes may run with elevated priority without prior permission. If permission is granted, nodes may run at up to nice -3. In no event may users processes use realtime scheduling, or any other scheduling mechanism that can block the system for an extensive amount of time.
  • Remember, the nodes are a shared resource. Please do not spin-wait for extended periods of time. (If possible, do not spin-wait at all!). The testbed nodes run with a 1ms scheduling granularity, so operations such as <tt>nanosleep</tt> are surprisingly effective.

Emulab's wide-area nodes are comprised of nodes setup by Emulab sites, as well as nodes from the MIT Testbed (also called the RON Cluster). To see what wide-area nodes are available, log into Emulab, and visit the widearea status page.