updating readme

README.md

@@ -8,7 +8,23 @@ Turn your NATS infrastructure into a distributed workload deployment and executi
 * [fc-image](./fc-image/) - Tools for building the rootfs (ext4) file system for use in firecracker VMs
 * [agent-api](./agent-api/) - Protobuf API specification for protocol used between `nex-node` and `nex-agent` across the firecracker boundary. Also contains a client for communicating with an agent. This is an internal API unlikely to be of interest to users.
 
-## Deploying and Running Workloads
+Follow these steps to get up and running:
+
+1. Build and launch a [nex-node](./nex-node/) instance. See the repo for configuration and deployment instructions. At the very least, you'll need:
+    * CNI configuration and plugins installed
+    * A linux kernel binary available
+    * A root file system (`ext4`) for the firecracker VMs
+1. Push your statically linked linux binary to a NATS object store
+1. Use the [nex-cli](./nex-cli) or the [control-api](./control-api/) to launch a workload. For this, you'll need:
+    * An xkey used by the publisher
+    * An nkey used to "issue" the workload (by convention, this is an account)
+    * A set of environment variables to pass into the workload at startup
+    * The URL of the workload in the format `nats://{object-store}/{key}`. This corresponds to where you uploaded the file in step 2. The `nex-node` must be able to pull from this store
+1. Monitor events and logs on `$NEX.events.*` and `$NEX.logs.>`
+
+**NOTE** that if your workload needs a NATS connection (or any other connection), not only will the firecracker CNI need to allow it, but you'll need to pass that URL/credentials/etc into the workload via the environment variables specified in the launch request.
+
+## Supported Workloads
 In order to create a deployable workload, you'll need to create a _statically linked_ executable compiled for 64-bit Linux. Creating a truly statically linked executable file can be tricky. The following shows how to do it in Go (run this in a directory with a `main.go` file):
 
 ```go
@@ -19,9 +35,9 @@ Building a statically linked 🦀 Rust binary involves using cargo to build agai
 
 For other languages, check the language documentation or community.
 
-Once your static executable is ready to run, you can use the [CLI](./nex-cli/) or the [Control API](./control-api/) to launch it.
+Once your static executable is ready to run, you can use the [CLI](./nex-cli/) or the [Control API](./control-api/) to launch it. The system will validate that the binary is statically linked and reject it otherwise.
 
 ## Architecture
-The following diagram provides a (rough) view of the various components of the system. Here, `nex-node` processes all attach to a NATS system. Each `nex-node` process is responsible for spinning up multiple firecracker VMs. Within each firecracker VM is a `nex-agent` process, and spawned by each `nex-agent` process is a _single_, untrusted workload (executable).
+The following diagram provides a (rough) view of the various components of the system. Here, `nex-node` processes all attach to a NATS system. Each `nex-node` process is responsible for spinning up multiple firecracker VMs. Within each firecracker VM is a `nex-agent` process, and spawned by each `nex-agent` process is a _single_, untrusted workload (executable). This untrusted workload, if it has a NATS connection, is using completely separate credentials and URLs than the control interface for `nex-node`s.
 
 ![NEX architecture](./nex-arch.png)

nex-node/machine_mgr.go

@@ -91,6 +91,7 @@ func (m *MachineManager) TakeFromPool() (*runningFirecracker, error) {
 func (m *MachineManager) PublishCloudEvent(eventType string, data interface{}) {
 	pk, _ := m.kp.PublicKey()
 	cloudevent := cloudevents.NewEvent()
+	cloudevent.SetTime(time.Now().UTC())
 	cloudevent.SetID(uuid.NewString())
 	cloudevent.SetType(eventType)
 	cloudevent.SetSource(pk)
@@ -227,6 +228,7 @@ func agentEventToCloudEvent(vm *runningFirecracker, pk string, event *agentapi.A
 
 	cloudevent.SetSource(fmt.Sprintf("%s-%s", pk, vm.vmmID))
 	cloudevent.SetID(uuid.NewString())
+	cloudevent.SetTime(time.Now().UTC())
 	cloudevent.SetType(eventType)
 	cloudevent.SetDataContentType(cloudevents.ApplicationJSON)
 	cloudevent.SetData(event.Data)