NetChaos

NetChaos is a Kubernetes-native network fault injection framework for chaos testing and resilience validation. It leverages Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and eBPF to simulate network conditions such as packet drops, latency, and protocol-specific disruptions at the node level.

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🚀 Features

• 🔧 Custom CRDs to define network faults in a declarative way
• 🧠 eBPF-based packet processing (via XDP or tc) for high-performance, kernel-level fault injection
• 🎯 Target specific pods, protocols (TCP, UDP, ICMP), or ports
• ⏱ Delay or drop packets based on rule logic (sequence number, percentage, etc.)
• 🔒 Runs with minimal privileges, confined by Kubernetes RBAC and node capabilities

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🧩 Use Cases

• Chaos testing for Kubernetes apps and services
• Validating retry logic, timeouts, and fallbacks
• Simulating flaky networks in CI/CD
• Fault injection in service mesh or microservice environments

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📦 Example CRD

apiVersion: nettools.io/v1alpha1
kind: FaultInjection
metadata:
  name: icmp-dropper
spec:
  target:
    namespace: default
    podSelector:
      matchLabels:
        app: my-app
  protocol: ICMP
  action: DROP
  match:
    seqMod: 5

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• go version v1.23.0+
• docker version 17.03+.
• kubectl version v1.11.3+.
• Access to a Kubernetes v1.11.3+ cluster.

To Deploy on the cluster

Build and push your image to the location specified by IMG:

make docker-build docker-push IMG=<some-registry>/netchaos:tag

NOTE: This image ought to be published in the personal registry you specified. And it is required to have access to pull the image from the working environment. Make sure you have the proper permission to the registry if the above commands don’t work.

Install the CRDs into the cluster:

make install

Deploy the Manager to the cluster with the image specified by IMG:

make deploy IMG=<some-registry>/netchaos:tag

NOTE: If you encounter RBAC errors, you may need to grant yourself cluster-admin privileges or be logged in as admin.

Create instances of your solution You can apply the samples (examples) from the config/sample:

kubectl apply -k config/samples/

NOTE: Ensure that the samples has default values to test it out.

To Uninstall

Delete the instances (CRs) from the cluster:

kubectl delete -k config/samples/

Delete the APIs(CRDs) from the cluster:

make uninstall

UnDeploy the controller from the cluster:

make undeploy

Project Distribution

Following the options to release and provide this solution to the users.

By providing a bundle with all YAML files

1. Build the installer for the image built and published in the registry:

make build-installer IMG=<some-registry>/netchaos:tag

NOTE: The makefile target mentioned above generates an 'install.yaml' file in the dist directory. This file contains all the resources built with Kustomize, which are necessary to install this project without its dependencies.

2. Using the installer

Users can just run 'kubectl apply -f ' to install the project, i.e.:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<org>/netchaos/<tag or branch>/dist/install.yaml

By providing a Helm Chart

1. Build the chart using the optional helm plugin

kubebuilder edit --plugins=helm/v1-alpha

2. See that a chart was generated under 'dist/chart', and users can obtain this solution from there.

NOTE: If you change the project, you need to update the Helm Chart using the same command above to sync the latest changes. Furthermore, if you create webhooks, you need to use the above command with the '--force' flag and manually ensure that any custom configuration previously added to 'dist/chart/values.yaml' or 'dist/chart/manager/manager.yaml' is manually re-applied afterwards.

netchaos

Prerequisites

1. stable rust toolchains: rustup toolchain install stable
2. nightly rust toolchains: rustup toolchain install nightly --component rust-src
3. (if cross-compiling) rustup target: rustup target add ${ARCH}-unknown-linux-musl
4. (if cross-compiling) LLVM: (e.g.) brew install llvm (on macOS)
5. (if cross-compiling) C toolchain: (e.g.) brew install filosottile/musl-cross/musl-cross (on macOS)
6. bpf-linker: cargo install bpf-linker (--no-default-features on macOS)

Build & Run

Use cargo build, cargo check, etc. as normal. Run your program with:

cargo run --release --config 'target."cfg(all())".runner="sudo -E"'

Cargo build scripts are used to automatically build the eBPF correctly and include it in the program.

Cross-compiling on macOS

Cross compilation should work on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

CC=${ARCH}-linux-musl-gcc cargo build --package netchaos --release \
  --target=${ARCH}-unknown-linux-musl \
  --config=target.${ARCH}-unknown-linux-musl.linker=\"${ARCH}-linux-musl-gcc\"

The cross-compiled program target/${ARCH}-unknown-linux-musl/release/netchaos can be copied to a Linux server or VM and run there.

Contributing

NOTE: Run make help for more information on all potential make targets

More information can be found via the Kubebuilder Documentation

License

Copyright 2025.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.