ReAssure 1.1 has been released! Users can now have full control of experimental PCs and install any software they like on them, including other virtualization solutions (e.g., Xen) and operating systems. VMware is still supported.
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ReAssure is a facility available to Purdue campuses, funded by an NSF MRI grant. Faculty, graduate students and their collaborators (e.g., at other universities) can use the ReAssure facility for classes (graduate or undergraduate), or research and experimentation. It has two functions:

• A repository of public images of virtual machines, whether they are appliances or interesting setups. It allows storing of your images for quick use within ReAssure, with or without sharing. Sharing is flexible and under your control; you can share with only pre-selected users, or with everyone (including anonymous downloads). You are responsible for making sure you do not share images of licensed software with people that do not have appropriate licenses. For example, Purdue has a site-license for Windows, so you can share images of Windows operating systems with other Purdue faculty, staff and students. However, sharing any such image outside of Purdue will get your account suspended if detected, and could jeopardize the facility.
  
• An experimental testbed setup for contained experiments (e.g., malware, experimental protocols, etc...). ReAssure provides a bank of 21 dual Athlon 64 experimental PCs running VMWare (Xen support will be implemented later). The PCs are accessible using ssh as well as graphically using NX remote access software. They are networked together using a Gbit switch that is reconfigurable on the fly, at the time you get control of the experimental PCs you need. Users have the options to:
  
  
  
  • Simply grab a PC without network configuration, and immediately run virtual machines inside VMWare or UML (user-mode Linux);
    
  • Upload an XML configuration file that specifies which software images to transfer on which PCs, and how to network the PCs together. The PCs have up to 5 network interfaces. The configuration file is created by a graphical utility written in Java.
    
  • Schedule a time during which to use the facility. If you wish, you can reserve the PCs you need ahead of time, given an XML configuration file. Your experiment will be automatically started at the selected time. It will also end automatically at the end of the period you reserved, with loss of access privileges.
    
  
  

The benefits of using ReAssure are that:

• You can use images created by others, including all the virtual appliances available for download at places like VMWare and Virtual Appliances
  
• You can run experiments with Gbit networking speeds with untrusted software, in an isolated environment. It is perfectly acceptable to run experiments in ReAssure with dangerous (worms, viruses, vulnerability scanners that use exploits) or experimental software (note that some software can detect if it is running inside VMware, and possibly attack it or change its behavior).
  
• You don't need to ask an administrator to setup a machine for you
  
• You can test new servers and network configurations before their deployment.
  
• You can save back your software image in your sftp directory on the image server. This could be a virtual machine on which you installed or configured new software, or a virtual machine in a suspended state. This way you can preserve the state of your experiment and keep your progress.

All the software developed for the project is available as open source.

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