Overview

What is TantoC2?

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TantoC2 is a plugin-driven C2 framework designed for professional penetration testing engagements. It provides a teamserver, operator CLI, web UI, and extensible agent ecosystem — all built with engagement isolation and operational security as first-class concerns.

Key Features

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Modular Agent Architecture

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Every deployable unit is an agent defined by an AgentPackage plugin that declares its capabilities, supported module formats, and built-in commands. Agents support two module loading modes:

• Managed mode (default): The loading agent manages the module’s lifecycle, and results flow back through the loading agent’s channel.
• Daemonized mode: The payload runs independently — if it’s an agent, it establishes its own crypto session and registers as a new, independent agent.

Any agent whose output format conforms to a module format can be loaded by any agent that accepts that format. The teamserver matches modules to agents by format identifier, platform, and architecture.

Engagement Isolation

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Every operation runs inside an isolated engagement context with its own encrypted SQLite database. Agents, tasks, credentials, and audit logs from one engagement are completely invisible to another.

Plugin Architecture

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TantoC2’s functionality is extended through four plugin types:

All plugins are discovered at runtime from designated directories and support hot-reload without server restart.

Operator Tooling

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• CLI with Textual TUI, interactive agent/group/tools shells, tab completion, themes, JSON mode, and Rich-formatted output
• Web UI with real-time WebSocket events, P2P topology visualization, agent module browser, and xterm.js agent terminals
• Client Library for scripting and automation

Security Model

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• ECDH + HKDF key exchange for agent sessions
• AES-256-GCM encryption for all wire traffic
• PBKDF2 master key derivation for at-rest database encryption
• 4-tier RBAC (Admin, Operator, Spectator, Collector) with per-engagement scoping
• Log redaction to prevent sensitive data leakage in server logs
• End-to-end P2P encryption — relay agents cannot inspect forwarded traffic
• Kill dates — mandatory hard expiration on every agent build

Architecture at a Glance

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graph TB
    CLI[tantoc2-cli] -->|REST API| TS[Teamserver]
    WebUI[Web UI] -->|REST API + WebSocket| TS
    Client[Client Library] -->|REST API| TS

    TS --> Pipeline[Message Pipeline]
    TS --> AgtMod[Agent Module Registry]
    TS --> Agentless[Tools Manager]
    TS --> BG[Background Services]

    Pipeline --> Listeners[Listeners]
    Listeners --> Agents[Agents]
    Agents -->|load_module| Modules[Agent Modules]
    Agents -->|P2P relay| Agents
    Agentless -->|Direct Protocol| Targets[Remote Services]

    TS --> DB[(Per-Engagement SQLite)]

TantoC2 runs as a single Python process with no external service dependencies. All state is stored in SQLite databases managed by SQLAlchemy.

Tech Stack

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Next Steps

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• Install TantoC2 to get the server running
• Follow the Quickstart for a 5-minute walkthrough
• Read the Operator Guide for day-to-day usage