Who can request an account?

The DETER testbed serves as a shared laboratory in which researchers, educators, developers, and operators from government, industry, and academia ​anywhere in the world can experiment with potential cyber security technologies under realistic conditions, with the aim of accelerating research, development, and deployment of effective defenses for computer networks everywhere. It is also intended to serve as a center for interchange and collaboration among security researchers as well as a tool to teach a new generation of security researchers. DETER has been used by classes at universities such as UCLA, Colorado State, and USC. For more information on using DETER for education, please refer to the ​DETER Teacher's Guide.

DETER accounts are grouped by projects, so typically the first step to getting started with DETER is to request a project.

Requesting a Project

To request a project account on DETERlab, a researcher uses the DETERlab web interface to submit a project description. If you are a student (graduate or undergraduate), please have your advisor request a project and join his/her project.

You will be asked a number of questions about your project and how you intend to use DETER. Please be as detailed as possible when describing your project especially when detailing any possible risks (if you do not provide sufficient detail it may delay approval). Upon submission, your application will be read by the DETER executive committee and voted on. This generally takes a few days. During this time they may contact you and ask for clarification. If you are curious about the progress on your application, you can [wkik:GettingHelp Contact Us].

Get started now and ​request a new project on DETER!

Getting an Account

If you submitted a request for a project, you have also created an account on DETER. If you are looking to join an existing project, you can simply use the ​Apply for Project Membership form. Your project leader will be informed via email of your join request and will have to log in to approve your account.

The Basics

Once your project has been approved, you can create experiments.

To start an experiment, you'll need to provide an NS file that describes its topology. We've provided a number of sample topologies? that should be enough to get you started.

After your experiment has been created you can swap it in, swap it out, and terminate it. Swapping in allocates nodes and connects them according to the topology file. Swapping an experiment out releases the nodes and LANs that have been allocated to it. Terminating it removes all trace of the experiment from the testbed.

Once your experiment is swapped in, you can access your nodes through SSH?.

See the DeterResources for a more detailed list of our software and further documentation.

Getting Help

If you run into trouble, please contact us and we'll be happy to assist.