Using SPADE's provenance reporting API

To create a reporter that sends information programmatically to the SPADE server, create a class in the spade.reporter.* package that extends the spade.core.AbstractReporter class. For example, to activate a class named myReporter, use:

-> add reporter myReporter arguments

This will cause the server to invoke the spade.reporter.myReporter.launch() method and pass the arguments string to it. Note that myReporter must be in the spade.reporter.* package and the Java class must be stored in the SPADE/src/spade/reporter directory. The server will load the spade.reporter.myReporter class dynamically when the above command is issued in the SPADE controller.

Similarly, the reporter can be deactivated while the server is running:

-> remove reporter myReporter

The above command will cause the SPADE server to invoke the spade.reporter.myReporter.shutdown() method. It will also be called when the SPADE server is exiting.

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Sending a provenance vertex

The following steps are used to send a provenance vertex to the SPADE server:

• Create an instance of spade.vertex.opm.Agent, spade.vertex.opm.Process, or spade.vertex.opm.Artifact. For example, to create a vertex describing a file use:

import spade.vertex.opm.Artifact;
Artifact artifact = new Artifact();

• Optionally, add key-value pair annotations to the vertex using the addAnnotation() method that the vertex subclass inherits from the spade.core.AbstractVertex class:

artifact.addAnnotation("file name", "/etc/passwd");
artifact.addAnnotation("modification time", "04:20:00 am");

• Send the vertex to the server using the putVertex() method that the reporter subclass inherits from the spade.core.AbstractReporter class:

putVertex(artifact);

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Sending a provenance edge

The following steps are used to send a provenance edge to the SPADE server:

• Create an instance of spade.edge.opm.Used, spade.edge.opm.WasGeneratedBy, spade.edge.opm.WasDerivedFrom, spade.edge.opm.WasTriggeredBy, or spade.edge.opm.WasControlledBy. For example, to create an edge describing that a file was read by a process:

import spade.edge.opm.Used;
Used used = new Used(process, file);

In the above example, the variable process must be an instance of spade.vertex.opm.Process and the variable file must be an instance of spade.vertex.opm.Artifact.

• Optionally, add key-value pair annotations to the edge using the addAnnotation() method that the edge subclass inherits from the spade.core.AbstractEdge class:

used.addAnnotation("I/O time", "42ms");

• Send the edge to the server using the putEdge() method that the reporter subclass inherits from the spade.core.AbstractReporter class:

putEdge(artifact);