what's new

What's new in Labtainers?

See the Labtainers release notes for details on additions and fixes to Labtainers.

March 2022

  • New ssh-tunnel lab exploring the use of SSH tunneling.
  • Support for Google Cloud Platform for students to run Labtainers VMs in the cloud.
  • Ghidra lab updated to version 10.1.2 of Ghidra

January 2022

  • Run Labtainers on the Azure cloud.  This can be a work-around for students who have M1-based Mac computers that will not run x86 VMs.  See the Student Guide.
  • Add display of progress downloading Docker images when labs start, and status of lab initialization.
  • Assessment of the setuid-env lab expanded to better reflect student progress.
  • Fixes to stdin/stdout capture functions to free up the terminal if the command process leaves orphans, and generally make it more aligned with typical shell processing.
  • Fixes to pcap-lib automated assessment and lab manual.

October 2021

  • Revised the tcpip lab and guide to clarify that a successful syn-flood attach is not possible with this configuration, and corrected its automated assessment.
  • Changed student artifact file names from "zip" to "lab" and added a preamble in an attempt to prevent students from unknowingly expanding the zip and then submitting some portion of its internals.
  • The -r option is now the default when using gradelab, (i.e., to get a fresh grading container.)

September 2021

  • New DNS lab to introduce the DNS protocol and configuration setup.
  • Remove support for Mac and Windows use of Docker Desktop, which is too unstable for us to support.
  • Example labs for LDAP and Mariadb using SSL.

June 2021

  • Tutorial videos
  • Use a "labtainers" terminal profile when displaying terminals for Labtainer computers (see the tutorials).

May 2021

  • New host-based IDS lab using OSSEC.
  • New lab to introduce management of users/groups and file permissions.
  • Added searchable keywords to each lab, see the "-k" and "-f" options to the labtainer command.
  • Introduced "Labpacks" to collect exercises into packages with common content.  Instructors can define their own Labpacks, e.g., to identify a set of labs as part of a course.  See the Student Guide and Instructor Guide.
  • New lab on networking basics.

April 2021

  • 2 new introductory software vulnerability labs: overrun and printf
  • Added sql-workbench to the db-access lab

March 2021

  • Moodle LMS support for bulk download of student submissions (See the Instructor Guide)
  • SIGCSE Symposium workshop guide for using and creating new Labtainers exercises.
  • Ten new web security labs using the OWASP framework, published as IModules.

February 2021

December 2020

  • Browser-based review of automated assessment results and artifacts from student labs.  (See the Instructor Guide).

October 2020

  • Run Labtainers using “Docker Desktop” for Windows or Mac, accessing a virtual desktop via a web browser.  (See Student Guide.)
  • Deploy Labtainers on cloud servers for remote access via a web browser (See https://github.com/mfthomps/Labtainers/blob/master/headless-lite/README.md) Note this is not a turn-key solution, it requires IT support and integration with local infrastructure.
  • A new “db-access” lab covering access control on a shared RDBMS per an information security policy
  • Addition of quizzes to help ensure students are prepared to perform the lab – see the db-access lab for an example.