Really Basic Measurement Kit (RBMK)

RBMK is a CLI tool for performing low-level, scriptable network measurements.

Features

1. Run commands you already know (e.g., rbmk dig, rbmk curl).

2. Measure fundamental network operations: DNS, HTTP(S), TCP, TLS, and STUN.

3. Obtain structured logs in JSONL format for easy analysis using --logs FILE.

4. Organize measurements as portable shell scripts run using rbmk sh.

5. Support shell scripting with built-in commands like rbmk tar, and rbmk mv.

6. Get extensive help using rbmk help and rbmk tutorial.

Use Cases

RBMK is mostly useful when investigating network anomalies, including outages, misconfigurations, censorship, and performance issues.

Minimum Required Go Version

The "stable" version. That is, the one before the current stable.

You can find it at https://go.dev/dl/.

Installation

go install -v -tags netgo github.com/rbmk-project/rbmk/cmd/rbmk@latest

Quick Start

These examples demonstrate how to use RBMK for common network measurements:

# Resolve a domain name
rbmk dig +short=ip example.com
93.184.215.14

# Make an HTTP request
rbmk curl -vo index.html https://example.com/

# Combine dig and curl for step-by-step measurement
addr=$(rbmk dig +short=ip example.com | rbmk head -n 1)
rbmk curl --resolve example.com:443:$addr https://example.com/

# Use --logs to get structured logs in JSONL format
rbmk dig --logs dns.jsonl +short=ip example.com
rbmk curl --logs http.jsonl -vo index.html https://example.com/

For a quick introduction with more examples, run:

rbmk intro

For comprehensive usage documentation, run:

rbmk tutorial

Build Tags

RBMK supports the following build tags to customize the build:

Feature Flag	Description
netgo	Use pure-Go functions instead of linking the C stdlib.
rbmk_disable_markdown	Disables Markdown rendering in help text, reducing binary size.

You can pass those flags to go install or go build. For example:

go install -v -tags netgo,rbmk_disable_markdown github.com/rbmk-project/rbmk/cmd/rbmk@latest

Commands

1. Core Measurement Commands: curl, dig, nc, stun.

2. Unix-like Commands for Scripting: cat, head, mkdir, mv, rm, sh, tar.

3. RBMK-Specific Commands for Scripting: ipuniq, markdown, pipe, random, timestamp.

4. Helper Commands: intro, tutorial, version.

Each command supports the --help flag for detailed usage information.

For example:

rbmk curl --help

Release Builds

You need GNU make installed. Run:

make release

Run make without arguments to see all available targets.

Documentation

Read the packages documentation at pkg.go.dev/rbmk-project/rbmk.

Architecture

Documentation:

• docs/design: Design documents.
• docs/man: Manual pages for RBMK commands.
• docs/spec: Specification documents.
• docs/tutorial: Tutorials for using RBMK.

Main Entry Point:

• cmd/rbmk: The main RBMK command-line tool.

Go Packages:

• pkg/cli: CLI implementation.
• pkg/common: Common utilities and helpers.
• pkg/dns: DNS measurement implementation.
• pkg/x: Experimental Go packages.

Build System:

• GNUmakefile: Makefile for RBMK.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit pull requests using GitHub.

License

SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later