rootcause

This is my submission for solving "Root cause analysis in a dynamic IP network"

Approach

Events are processed chronologically against a live topology model of the network.

LINK_DOWN events mutate the graph and score the affected link and node as candidates for the root cause.

NODE_UNREACHABLE events are checked against the current topology, and if the topology agrees, then it is categorised as a downstream symptom of the root cause.

Candidates are ranked by accumulated score and split into most likely causes, less likely causes, and observed downstream symptoms.

Building

Requirements

• Stable Rust toolchain from rustup

git clone https://github.com/th0jensen/rootcause
cd rootcause
cargo build --release

Usage

The program expects input files matching the spec. There's a collection of example files in the /examples directory.

./target/release/rootcause -i ./examples/input1.json -e ./examples/events1.json

Optionally, without building first:

cargo run -- -i ./examples/input1.json -e ./examples/events1.json

To view usage in the terminal:

./target/release/rootcause --help

Project Structure

rootcause/
├── examples/                  # Example files
└── src/
    ├── main.rs                # CLI and API orchestration
    ├── types.rs               # Struct definitions for deserialization
    ├── network.rs             # Network and Event processing
    └── analysis.rs            # Score aggregation and analysis

Libraries/crates used

• serde and serde_json: JSON deserialization
• clap: CLI argument parsing
• anyhow: Unified error handling
• jiff: Timestamp parsing and formatting