Bug 14 (vm/launch_target.sh): Metasploitable2 requires -machine pc
(i440fx), -cpu kvm32, -drive if=ide, and -device e1000. The previous
config (-machine q35, -cpu host, -drive if=virtio, virtio-net-pci)
caused a kernel panic at boot because /dev/vda != the grub root=/dev/sda1.
Services never started; the b'' probe fix (Bug 10) then correctly waited
out the full timeout with no result.
Bug 15 (scripts/install-tier-3-4.sh): verify step used vsftpd_234_backdoor
which is requires_bridge=true and has a hardcoded port-6200 backdoor.
Changed to distccd_command_exec with TARGET_PORTS="5632:3632,4444:4444".
manifest.toml: admit distccd_command_exec and unreal_ircd_3281_backdoor
to the module catalog. Both use cmd/unix/bind_perl (bind shell, no guest
egress, SLIRP-safe). distccd returns a valid protocol response so MSF's
handler runs and session_open fires. Verified against Metasploitable2
sourceforge image sha256 a8c019c3.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Phase labels are written ONLY when justifying events arrive. The
schedule clock is now a budget — an upper bound — never a label
source. This is the core honesty fix the §3 evidence demanded:
Before: every Tier-3 episode wrote `infected_running` from the
schedule clock regardless of whether session_open ever
fired. Per §10 every dishonest label is a poisoned
training example. 67/67 of the §3 probe episodes were
poisoned this way.
After: `infecting` writes ONLY when exploit_fire is observed in
events.jsonl. `infected_running` writes ONLY when
session_open is observed. Either timing out or seeing
session_open_timeout terminates the walker with a `failed`
label that the §4.6 acceptance gate will reject.
PHASE_JUSTIFYING_EVENTS in orchestrator/episode.py declares which
events justify which phases:
"clean": None # orchestrator-emitted
"armed": None # orchestrator-emitted
"infecting": ("exploit_fire",)
"infected_running": ("session_open",)
TERMINAL_FAILURE_EVENTS = {"session_open_timeout"} short-circuit any
event-driven wait into a `failed` label.
`dormant` is intentionally OFF the canonical schedule. §4.5 calls
for dormant to be event-driven (session_idle / session_active) too,
but the driver doesn't emit those yet. Per §1 default-to-removal we
ship without dormant rather than label it from the clock; when the
driver gains those emits, dormant re-enters the schedule with
proper justification.
EpisodeRunner now owns:
* `_event_log` — every emit_event appends here
* `_event_cv` — condition variable for waiters
* `_wait_for_event(names, since_t_mono_ns, timeout_s)` — returns
the first matching event in the log
with t_mono >= threshold; threshold
catches events that fired during
the previous on_phase callback.
When an event-driven phase's justifier already arrived (e.g.
exploit_fire emitted by driver._fire() inside on_phase("armed")),
the walker uses the EVENT's t_mono on the label — not the time the
walker noticed. The label means "this is when this thing actually
happened."
manifest.toml: dropped the dormant cycle from the canonical schedule.
Episode is shorter (~30s) but every label is event-justified.
14 new tests in tests/test_event_driven_labeller.py covering: justifier
mapping invariants, _wait_for_event semantics (already-arrived,
future, timeout, since-threshold, first-of-multiple-names), walker
behavior (orchestrator-emitted phases, event-driven phases, missing
event → failed, terminal-failure-event short-circuit, stop event,
event-t_mono on label, phase_transition events with justified_by).
286 tests passing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The experiment is now defined by a single version-pinned file —
manifest.toml at the repo root. PIPELINE.md §4.1 / §13 / §16. Every
lab host loads THIS exact file; per-host overrides of experiment
shape are forbidden.
Drops the following per-host CLI overrides that previously violated
the canonical-manifest principle:
* --manifest, --modules-dir (paths now derived)
* --ram-per-vm-mib (in manifest.experiment)
* --max-concurrent (manifest.experiment.fleet.max_concurrent_ceiling)
* --max-tier3-slots (manifest.experiment.fleet.max_tier3_slots)
* --force-tier2 (not a §14 sanctioned override knob —
ship empty catalog to disable Tier-3)
* --require-real-samples (sample-side concern; out of fleet scope)
* tools/run_*_demo.py --manifest (samples path now from canonical)
New surface:
* manifest.toml — the single source of truth
* orchestrator/manifest.py — load_canonical() + Manifest dataclass
with strict validation, raises
ManifestError on any failure
* EpisodeConfig.experiment_meta — populated by run_*_demo.py from
the canonical manifest; stamped
into every episode's meta.json
under "experiment" key for
provenance
* cis490-orchestrator.service — RestartPreventExitStatus=78 so
manifest-load failures stay
stuck-and-loud (§9, §4.7)
* install-lab-host.sh — validates manifest.toml at
install time; missing or invalid
= die with clear message
Catalog admission semantics: only modules whose name appears in
manifest.catalog get loaded into the runtime catalog (§4.3 in
miniature, will tighten further in step 4 when verified_against /
last_verified actually gate admission). Missing toml for an admitted
name is a sysadmin error → exit 78.
Renames cfg.manifest → cfg.samples + adds cfg.experiment to
disambiguate sample-manifest from experiment-manifest. Rewrites
test_fleet.py fixture to construct synthetic Manifest objects so
test outcomes don't depend on the on-disk manifest.toml content.
12 new tests in tests/test_manifest.py: schema-version mismatch,
unknown collector, duplicate collector, unknown phase, negative
phase seconds, negative ram, missing catalog fields, json round-trip.
Local run: `python tools/run_fleet.py --capacity` correctly logs the
loaded manifest and prints capacity. 241 tests passing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Max Gorog
