netdex / seppuku

A self-hosted digital deadman's switch installation with an extensible .NET module system.

Seppuku

This project is a work in progress.

What is it?

A dead man's switch (for other names, see alternative names) is a switch that is automatically operated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally applied to switches on a vehicle or machine, it has since come to be used to describe other intangible uses like in computer software. Wikipedia

Seppuku is a self-hosted digital deadman's switch installation with an extensible .NET module system.

It intends to follow the principles outlined in this blog post.

Consists of a continous countdown timer, which requires constant resets to avoid triggering, akin to a deadman's switch used in a train. If the timer is allowed to countdown because the owner is not able to reset the timer, then it will trigger a list of actions in the form of "modules", which can be added to Seppuku to extend its functionality.

For example, you could create a module which wipes your harddrive when the switch triggers, or sends a message to everyone in your contacts.

FAQ

Q: I'll be dead anyways, why would I care about what happens after I die?
A: I just write software, get your philosophy outta here

Q: How should I run this?
A: Rent a Linux box and run it with Mono as a daemon or something of that ilk.

Build Instructions

1. Restore NuGet targets in packages.config
2. Use msbuild or xbuild to build the release target of Seppuku.sln

Usage

1. Run seppuku.exe, it will generate a configuration files on first run.
2. Modify the configuration file to your heart's content.
3. Modify the module configuration files in Configuration/.
4. Restart seppuku.exe and leave it running.

Configuration

On first execution, seppuku.xml will be generated. Look through it to see what you can modify. The default configuration properties are available at https://github.com/Netdex/Seppuku/blob/master/Seppuku/Config/Conf.cs#L30 (this link might not lead to the right code).

Each individual module also has it's own configuration, stored at /Configuration. Each module specifies its default configuration through the constructor.

Module Development

Modules are MEF contract based. See Seppuku/Module/Internal/ModuleAlert.cs for an example. For non-internal modules, compile them as a .dll file and place them in a folder named Modules/ in the same directory as seppuku.exe.

Included Modules

Seppuku.Module.Internal.ModuleAlert

Prints out a message to the console whenever an event occurs.

Seppuku.Module.Internal.ModuleWebAPI

Seppuku also exposes a web API through ModuleWebAPI to query information about the deadman's switch, available at localhost:19007 by default (can be configured). All responses are returned in JSON. Look in the code for more details.

Seppuku.Module.ModuleGetRequest

Sends GET requests to multiple configurable endpoints when the switch fails.

Seppuku.Module.Proxy

Proxies requests to a specifed endpoint to one of two configurable endpoints. The endpoint chosen depends on whether the dead man's switch has been triggered or not. Good for sinkholing domains when the dead man's switch expires.

seppuku's Issues

Proxy exhibits strange behavior when endpoint changed in same session

Module WebAPI is Misbehaving

I got the following error: https://prnt.sc/sdv09z

Can anybody help

the proxy module randomly crashes

Ephemeral sockets created for each connection were not being closed correctly, and Mono does not automatically GC them unlike .NET on Windows. Thus, the maximum number of file descriptors for sockets will be exceeded. Problem resolved by manually GC'ing sockets.