UConn-x-National-Guard-Documentation

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What is Labtainers?

Labtainers is a cybersecurity training tool that provides a suite of exercises on various topics in cybersecurity.

Labtainers Workflow

The workflow for a student completing a Labtainers exercise might look like this

  1. The student opens their Labtainers Virtual Machine, perhaps located within VirtualBox.
  2. The student launches the Labtainers image, which is an Ubuntu instance with Labtainers pre-installed
  3. The student enters the
labtainer LABNAME

command, where LABNAME is replaced with the name of the lab exercise the student wants to run.

  1. The student clicks on the link generated in the terminal which opens a pdf that contains information relevant to the lab exercise.
  2. The student executes shell commands in various terminals generated by the lab exercise. Each terminal corresponds to a different host located within the network of the lab exercise. For example, in an exercise that scans a web server, there may be one terminal for the web server host, and one for the client.

A list of exercises can be found here.

One feature of the Labtainers

Labtainers Quick Start

Instructions to install and run Labtainers can be found here, and the main process of installation is reproduced here for convenience:

  1. Download the Ubuntu virtual machine containing Labtainers from https://nps.edu/web/c3o/virtual-machine-images.
  2. Install the virtual machine by running VirtualBox, then clicking File / Import Appliance / LabtainerVM-VirutalBox.ova, and following the prompts.
  3. Double-click on the virtual machine you created to run it.

Once the virtual machine has been started, the Ubuntu logo will appear, and various terminal windows may appear.

In a generated terminal window, you may type

labtainer

with no arguments to view the list of available labs. This list includes short descriptions of each lab, which describe the skill each lab aims to teach.

You can navigate this list using the h, j, k, and l keys, using q to exit. You may also press the / button to begin a search for a specific term, and use the n and N keys to navigate forwards and backwards through each search result, respectively.

Once a desired lab has been selected, run this lab using

labtainer LABNAME

where LABNAME is replaced with the name of the lab.

Once the lab has been started, right click on the link generated within the terminal, and select “Open Link”. This will open a pdf with information relevant to the current lab.

Now, within the terminal where the labtainer command was run, hit the ENTER key. After a short period, a series of terminals should appear within the virtual machine. At this moment, an isolated network has now been created within containers in the virtual machine.

Follow the instructions located within the pdf to complete the lab exercise. You’ll note that each terminal which has appeared represents a host on the network which now exists within the containers on the virtual machine.

After completing the lab exercise, return to the terminal where you originally entered the labtainer command. You may now enter the command stoplab to terminate the lab session, and close all related terminal windows.

After running this command, all of your progress, and the current state of each container is saved. This allows for you to quickly pick up from where you left off on the last session.

If, on the next run of the lab, you want to start off from scratch, pass the -r argument to redo the lab exercise:

labtainer -r LABNAME

After completing the lab, labtainers also has buit-in utilities for instructors to automatically review and assess the work of their students.