Machine Managers

Machine managers are modules that define how Cuckoo should interact with your virtualization software (or potentially even with physical disk imaging solutions). Since we decided from this release to not enforce any particular vendor, from now on you are able to use your preferred and, in case is not supported by default, write a custom Python module that define how to make Cuckoo use it.

Every machine manager module is and should be located inside modules/machinemanagers/.

A basic machine manager could look like:

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from lib.cuckoo.common.abstracts import MachineManager
from lib.cuckoo.common.exceptions import CuckooMachineError

class MyManager(MachineManager):
    def start(self, label):
        try:
            start(label)
        except SomethingBadHappens as e:
            raise CuckooMachineError("OPS!")

    def stop(self, label):
        try:
            stop(label)
            revert(label)
        except SomethingBadHappens as e:
            raise CuckooMachineError("OPS!")

The only requirements for Cuckoo are that:

  • The class inherits MachineManager.
  • You have a start() and stop() functions.
  • You preferably raise CuckooMachineError when something fails.

As you understand, the machine manager is a core part of a Cuckoo setup, therefore make sure to spend enough time debugging your code and make it solid and resistant to any unexpected error.

Configuration

Every machine manager module should come with a dedicated configuration file located in conf/<machine manager name>.conf. For example for modules/kvm.py we have a conf/kvm.conf.

The configuration file should follow the default structure:

[kvm]
# Specify a comma-separated list of available machines to be used. For each
# specified ID you have to define a dedicated section containing the details
# on the respective machine. (E.g. cuckoo1,cuckoo2,cuckoo3)
machines = cuckoo1

[cuckoo1]
# Specify the label name of the current machine as specified in your
# libvirt configuration.
label = cuckoo1

# Specify the operating system platform used by current machine
# [windows/darwin/linux].
platform = windows

# Specify the IP address of the current machine. Make sure that the IP address
# is valid and that the host machine is able to reach it. If not, the analysis
# will fail.
ip = 192.168.122.105

A main section called [<name of the module>] with a machines field containing a comma-separated list of machines IDs.

For each machine you should specify a label, a platform and it’s ip.

These fields are required by Cuckoo in order to use the already embedded initialize() function that generates the list of available machines.

If you plan to change the configuration structure you should override the initialize() function (inside your own module, no need to modify Cuckoo’s core code). You can find it’s original code in the MachineManager abstract inside lib/cuckoo/common/abstracts.py.