Capture The Feather

Capture the Feather is a capture the flag platform that will focus on the learning aspect of these competitions. Whether you're a beginner, a college student currently learning cybersecurity fundamentials, or a pro who wants to challenge themselves, this platform can provide learning experiences to all of you.

As a capture the flag platform, users will be able to sign up for the platform and try to complete cybersecurtity challenges created by an administrator. These challenges could range from simple web challenges to reverse engineering challenges. Users and admin will be able to keep track of who completes challenges the quickest and who has the most points.

Pre-Requisite for Hosting Containers

If you plan to hold challenges that utilize containers, you'll need to ensure that you are running the application on a machine that has Kubernetes installed and setup. The currently only tested method is using Docker Desktop with Kubernetes enabled. You can find more information on how to set this up here.

Hosting Instructions

1. Clone the repository
2. Copy the .env.example file in the root directory to a new file called .env
3. Fill in the .env file with the appropriate values.
4. Run docker-compose up -d db in the root directory and wait for the database to start.
5. Run docker-compose up -d in the root directory. This will start the backend, and frontend.
6. Go to http://localhost:3000 in your browser to view the frontend.
7. Click on the Register button on the top right to create an account. The first account created will be an admin account.
8. If you need to import challenges from another source, such as here, see the README in the importer directory.
9. If you need to make changes to anything, make the changes and run docker-compose up -d --build to rebuild and restart the containers. You will need to do this if you use the importer project to import challenges.
10. See the section above called "Pre-Requisite for Hosting Containers" if you plan to host challenges that utilize containers.

Development Setup Instructions

1. Clone the repository
2. Run npm install in the root directory.
3. Copy the .env.example file in the root directory to a new file called .env
4. Fill in the .env file with the appropriate values.
5. Run docker-compose up -d db in the root directory. This will start the database.
6. Navigate into the server directory.
7. Run npm install in the server directory.
8. Navigate back to the root directory and then into the client directory.
9. Run npm install in the client directory.
10. Navigate back to the root directory and run npm run dev to start the backend and frontend.
11. See the section above called "Pre-Requisite for Hosting Containers" if you plan to develop functionality related to challenge containers.

Timeline of Completion

For each milestone, I will add some unit tests to backend code only as it will contain the most logic.

Milestone 1 - Due Feb 26 by 11:59pm For Milestone 1, the plan is to finish the basic functionality of the platform for non-admins. This includes viewing challenges, solving challenging, and being a part of a leaderboard.

• [2/12/24] - Users can view challenges, solve them, and get points for it. A mock leaderboard was created to show the top 10 users. Real data will be implemented soon.
• [2/18/24] - Real data has been implemented into the leaderboard. Challenges can now be imported from open source. Examples of these can be found in importer/challenges. The challenges in importer/challengesToDo require files to be downloadable and will be implemented during Milestone 2.
• [2/25/24] - Tests have been written for every controller and service class. These tests are located in the server/__tests__ directory. I have added badges into the platform, so that whenever a user solves a challenge correctly, they will be awarded badges that they meet the requirements for.

Milestone 2 - Due Mar 25 by 12:59am For Milestone 2, the plan is to finish the basic functionality of the platform for admins. This will include creating challenges, editing challenges, deleting challenges, and managing users.

• [3/10/24] - Basic Admin view has been created. Admins can view challenges and users. The UI for creating challenges has been started.
• [3/17/24] - Kubernetes API endpoints have been added to the project so users can deploy challenge containers for themselves.
• [3/25/24] - Admins can now create challenges, edit challenges, and delete challenges. They can also view all attempts and filter/sort through them.

Milestone 3 - Due Apr 15 by 12:59am For Milestone 3, the plan is to create an event/challenge exporter and uploader. This will only include the format created by our platform. If time permits, I may begin to look into how to create a challenge importer for other platforms.

• [3/29/24] - The UI for starting and stopping containers has been created on the user side. Admins can view all containers and the status of them on the admin/containers view.
• [4/7/24] - Settings page has been created for admins. Admins can now edit the start and end time of the game, auto-generate badges, export challenges and related data, and import back in the challenges and related data. On the user side, the start and end time of the game is displayed at the top.
• [4/14/24] - Added the ability for admins to reorder challenges/categories. Various bug fixes and improvements have been made to the platform.