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Creating Private and Public CTF Competitions

Abstract

This KB article will cover how to enable or disable public registration in CloudCTF. This article is intended for CTF Admins (Cyber Range Instructors). For more information on CloudCTF roles, please see the section titled CloudCTF Roles. If you do not yet have an account with the U.S. Cyber Range, please see the article titled Accepting an Instructor Account Invitation.

CloudCTF allows for both private and public CTF competitions by providing a public registration feature in the admin settings of a CloudCTF environment. Public registration is not supported in the standard CTF subscription. Please contact support if you would like to use public registration.

  • Private CTF competitions are the default in CloudCTF and only allow students enrolled in U.S. Cyber Range courses to access the environment. To learn more about making a CloudCTF competition private, please see section titled How to Setup a Private CTF Competition below.

  • Public CTF competitions must be enabled in the admin settings of a CloudCTF environment and allow users from outside of the U.S. Cyber Range to participate in CloudCTF competitions. To learn more about making a CloudCTF competition public, please see the section titled How to Setup a Public CTF Competition below.

How to Setup a Private CTF Competition

  1. To create a private CloudCTF environment for users enrolled in Cyber Range courses, please get started by first creating a new CloudCTF environment. Please see the article titled Creating a CloudCTF Environment.

  2. Once you have successfully created your CloudCTF Environment, please see the section titled Launching Your CloudCTF Environment.

  3. Next, you will need to navigate to the Admin settings of your environment. Please click on Admins, as shown in the image below.

    The Admins panel can be found at the top of the screen, as the rightmost of the four choices.

  4. You will now need to make sure that public registration is disabled. If the Allow Public Registration box is checked, please uncheck the box and then click on Confirm to save the settings.

    The Allow Public Registration box can be found just below the Date and Time section, as the first box.

  5. U.S. Cyber Range students that are enrolled in active courses will be able to access the CloudCTF environment from within the exercise area. Students can be provided with the Getting Started in CloudCTF player article for more information on accessing the environment.

How to Setup a Public CTF Competition

Public CTF competitions must be enabled in the admin settings of a CloudCTF environment to allow users from outside of the U.S. Cyber Range to participate in CloudCTF competitions. Public CTF competitions can also help with maintaining student privacy during a competition. Please see the article titled Student Privacy Protection. for more information.

Note

Public registration is not supported in all subscription types. Please contact support if you require public registration for your CloudCTF competition.

  1. To create a public CloudCTF environment for users outside of the U.S. Cyber Range, please get started by first creating a new CloudCTF environment. Please see the article titled Creating a CloudCTF Environment.

  2. Once you have successfully created your CloudCTF Environment, please see the section titled Launching Your CTF Environment.

  3. Next, you will need to navigate to the Admin settings of your environment. Please click on Admins, as shown in the image below.

    The Admins panel can be found at the top of the screen, as the rightmost of the four choices.

  4. You will now need to make sure that public registration has been enabled. Please check the Allow Public Registration box and then click on Confirm to save the settings.

    The Allow Public Registration box can be found just below the Date and Time section, as the first box.

  5. Once you have successfully enabled public registration, please navigate to the CloudCTF start menu by clicking on the CloudCTF logo, as shown in the image below.

    The CloudCTF logo can be found at the top left of the screen.

  6. Next, please copy the full URL from your address bar, as shown in the image below.

    The URL can be found at the top of the screen in the address bar, after "https://".

  7. After you have enabled public registration and copied the URL address from your CloudCTF homepage, you will be able to share this link with users from outside the Cyber Range. Once a user navigates to the link, they will be able to register for the CTF competition by using their Google or Microsoft Azure account.

Users from outside of the U.S. Cyber Range can be provided with the article titled Getting Started in CloudCTF for more information on registering for a public CTF competition.

Have a Question? Contact Support

If you experience any issues starting or viewing CloudCTF in your web browser, please see the article titled Can't Launch CloudCTF for helpful tips on resolving the matter.

We're here to help you. If you still have questions after reviewing the information above, please feel free to submit a ticket with our support team and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.