Skip to content

Editing Challenges - Admin

Abstract

This article will guide you through the different processes of editing challenges in Cloud CTF. If you have not yet created a Cloud CTF environment, please refer to the article titled Creating a Cloud CTF Environment and the section titled Launching Your Cloud CTF Environment.

Edit Challenges Directly from the Main Challenges Page

One way for a CTF Admin to edit challenges is by navigating to the main challenges page in Cloud CTF. This option will allow a CTF Admin to Test the challenge to ensure that it is working as expected and save the challenge to your Personal Challenge Library.

  1. To begin, open your Cloud CTF environment and navigate to the Challenges tab at the top of the screen.

    The Challenges tab is at the top of the screen to the left of the Scoreboard tab.

  2. Select the challenge you wish to edit.

    Challenges appear in the middle of the screen in blue boxes.

  3. Once you have selected a challenge to edit, a popup window will appear. Within this window, there are a few options:

    1. The Edit icon. This allows you to edit the challenge. Please refer to the section titled How to Edit Challenge Properties for more information.

    2. The Save icon. This allows you to save the challenge. Please refer to the section titled How to Save a Challenge for more information.

    3. The Test icon. This allows you to test the challenge after you have made changes or before you save it to your personal challenge library. Please refer to the section titled How to Test a Challenge for more information.

  4. To edit the challenge, please click on the Edit icon.

    Clicking on the edit icon in the lower-left corner of the popup window allows you to edit a challenge.

  5. This will open the Edit a Challenge window.

  6. Please refer to the section titled How to Edit Challenge Properties for more information related to editing challenge properties.

Edit Challenges from the Admin Challenge Page

CTF Admins also have the ability to edit challenges from within the Admin page. By clicking on the Challenges tab on the Admins page, CTF Admins get an overview of all active challenges for a CTF competition. Here, CTF Admins can view failed/successful challenge attempts and manage all challenges.

  1. To begin, navigate to the ADMINS page.

    The Admins tab is at the top of the screen to the right of the Scoreboard tab.

  2. Next, click on the CHALLENGES tab.

    The Challenges tab is located beneath the Admins heading, to the right of the Teams tab.

  3. You will then be presented with a list of active challenges for the current CTF competition. Locate the challenge you wish to edit.

  4. Next, please click on the Settings icon and then click Edit.

    The Settings icon is located on the left side of the screen, as the second vertical column next to each Challenge name.

  5. This will open the Edit a Challenge window.

  6. Please refer to the section titled How to Edit Challenge Properties for more information related to editing challenge properties.

Edit Challenges in your Personal Challenge Library

Note

In addition to single-choice answer challenges, we also now have the option of creating challenges with multiple answer choices. Please refer to our article titled Multiple Choice Challenges for more information.

CTF Admins have the ability to edit challenges from within their personal challenge library. The personal challenge library provides Admins the ability to save customized challenges for future competitions.

  1. To begin, navigate to the ADMINS page.

    The Admins tab is at the top of the screen to the right of the Scoreboard tab.

  2. Click on the LIBRARY tab.

    The Library tab is located beneath the Admins heading, to the right of the Challenges tab.

  3. Click on the settings icon to the left of the challenge you wish to edit and then click on Edit.

    The edit option is located just under the settings icon that was previously clicked, in a dropdown menu.

  4. Once you have clicked on edit, the Edit a Challenge window will appear.

  5. Please refer to the section titled How to Edit Challenge Properties for more information related to editing challenge properties.

How to Edit Challenge Properties

Challenge Properties

  1. Once you have opened the Edit a Challenge window for a specific challenge, you can begin editing the challenge properties. The challenge properties are divided into four categories listed below. Each category can be accessed by clicking on the associated icon in the left-hand side of the window.

    The Edit a Challenge Window contains certain fields, such as Name, Description, Points, Type, and Flag.

Edit Challenge Information

  1. Once you have opened the Edit a Challenge window, select the flag icon in the top left of the popup window. This will allow you to edit general challenge information.

    The Flag Icon is located in the top left of the window, just under the header named Edit a Challenge.

  2. Here you can edit the challenge name, description, point value, challenge flag type (String or Regex), and the actual flag (answer).

  3. To add another challenge flag, please click on Add a Flag and select either String or Regex (regular expression) as the flag type.

    • If the flag is a String type, the player has to match the string exactly, to include the same capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
    • If the flag is a Regex, you may enter a regular expression that will be used to match the players' input. Regular expressions allow for more flexibility in the players' flag entry, but they are more complicated to create if you are not familiar with them. To learn more about regular expressions used for Regex flags, please refer to https://regex101.com.

    The String or Regex options can be found towards the bottom of the window, to the left of the Flag field.

Edit Artifacts and Hints

  1. To edit artifacts and hints, click on the Artifacts and Hints icon on the left side of window as shown in the image below.

    The Artifacts and Hints Icon is located on the left side of the screen, just under the Flag Icon. It is stylized as a paperclip.

  2. You will then be presented with challenge artifacts and hints attached to the challenge, and can click on the title of the artifact or hint to edit or remove it.

    • Artifact - A challenge artifact can be an uploaded file (text, binary, picture, etc.) or a link to an external website.
    • Hint - A challenge hint provides players with more information about a particular challenge, usually for a small fee.

    Options and artifacts can be found under the artifact header. Options and hints can be found under the hint header.

  3. To add an artifact to an existing challenge, click on Add an Artifact and then select your artifact type. This can be either a file or a web link.

  4. Next, supply a name for the artifact and then add a file or web link to the challenge. After you are finished, please click on confirm to add the artifact to your challenge.

    Adding an Artifact to a Challenge

  5. To add a hint to an existing challenge, click on Add a Hint, as shown in the example below.

    The Add a Hint option can be found under the Hints header.

  6. You can then add a hint message and assign it a point value.

    • The hint message is the message that will be revealed to a CTF Player when they unlock the hint.
    • The point value is how much it will cost a team to unlock the hint.

  7. When you are finished, click Confirm to add the hint to the challenge.

    The Add a Hint window will contain two fields, consisting of a Hint Message field, and a Points to Unlock this hint field. The confirm button is in the bottom right corner.

Advanced Challenge Settings

  1. To edit the advanced settings of a challenge, please click on the Settings icon, as shown in the image below.

    The Advanced Settings Icon is located on the left side of the screen, just under the paperclip Icon.

  2. Within the Advanced Settings, you are able to edit the following:

    • The Enabled checkbox allows CTF Admins to enable or disable challenges for a CTF competition. If you would like to hide a specific challenge for a CTF, simply uncheck the Enabled checkbox.
    • The Category field allows a CTF Admin to choose which category this challenge belongs to. To change the challenge category, please click on the category field, and either select an existing challenge category from the dropdown menu, or create a new category by typing in your desired category name. For more information on creating new categories, please refer to the article titled Category Management.
    • The Max number of attempts field allows CTF Admins to limit the number of times a CTF player can attempt to solve this challenge.
    • The Unlock this challenge by solving field allows CTF Admins to require players to solve specific challenges before unlocking others. To set a prerequisite challenge, click the field and select one or more challenges from the dropdown menu.

Edit Challenge Tags

  1. To edit challenge tags, click on the Tags icon, as shown in the image below.

    The Tag Icon is located at the left side of the screen, under the Settings Icon.

  2. Next, click on the Tags input field.

  3. You can now begin typing a custom tag or select one from the dropdown menu that appears.

  4. When a tag has been successfully added, it will be shown below the Tags input field and highlighted in blue.

  5. To remove a specific tag, please click on the X icon as shown in the image below.

    The tag input field and delete icon are shown, with the Tag Input Field at the top, and the delete icon at the bottom left of the window.

How to Save a Challenge

  1. Once you have finished editing your challenge, click on the Confirm button to save all changes made to the challenge.

    The Confirm Button is located at the bottom right of the window.

How to Test a Challenge

Testing a challenge allows a CTF Admin to preview the behavior of a challenge without affecting the score or any statistics related to a competition. To test a challenge, please follow the steps below.

  1. Make sure you have clicked on the Challenges tab at the top of your screen.

  2. Next, select the challenge you wish to edit.

    Clicking on a challenge on the challenges page will allow you to view challenge details.

  3. A popup window will appear with a flag input field and a few controls related to the challenge. Please input what the correct flag should be to test the challenge.

    The flag input field is located in the middle of the window, under the small flag header.

  4. Next, please click the Test button.

    The Test button for a challenge is located at the bottom right of the window.

  5. You will then be presented with a message indicating whether the test passed or failed.

    • A green checkmark indicates the test passed.
    • A red X indicates the test failed.

    The Test Challenge message will appear under the flag input field, as a green checkmark, or a red x.

Regex Example

Our Cloud CTF competitions offers regular expressions (regex) answer matching engine. Regex is a very powerful, pattern matching syntax to test and grade multiple answers submitted by players. One well written regex answer match can solve many different student submission variations, as shown below. In order to test your regex patterns, follow the same instructions as listed in the string example above, only put your answer between the pattern slashes, and add the special regex symbols to indicate the criteria for your regex pattern.

This image shows an example of regex used in a sample Cloud CTF competition

In the image above, the regex matching pattern is between the slashes, and uses special characters to denote various patterns. In this case a single '.' represents any single character, while '.' represents zero or more of any character. So putting '.' between words catches zero or more spaces, underscores, hyphens, etc. The trailing 'i' after the slash means to match any upper/lower case letters within the slashes, and 'g' stands for "global" match, or accept anything before or after the match (such as a flag{answer} wrapper).

Given our use of .* and /ig, this one regex answer will match and be correct for all of (but not limited to) the following answers:

  • Wh4t_th3_h3x_is_th15
  • wh4t_th3_h3x_is_th15
  • flag{Wh4t_th3_h3x_is_th15}
  • flag{wh4t_th3_h3x_is_th15}
  • Hellowh4t_th3_h3x_is_th15World

This is much better than attempting to write 14-15 or hundreds of different possible correct string answers.

Instructors have found that the following link has helped them write regex: please refer to https://regex101.com.

How to Delete a Challenge

  1. To delete a challenge from the Edit a Challenge window, click on Delete, as shown in the image below.

    The Delete Button is located at the bottom left of the window.

  2. You will then be presented with a confirmation message informing you that the action you are about to take is not reversible. If you are certain you would like to delete the challenge, check the box next to "I understand that this action is unrecoverable".

    The checkbox item for deleting a challenge can be found in the middle of the window, under the header named Are you Sure?

  3. Finally, click on Confirm in the confirmation message window to completely delete the challenge.

    The Confirm Delete Button can be found at the bottom right of the window.

More on Challenge Management

If you are interested in learning more about managing challenges in Cloud CTF, please refer to the article titled Cloud CTF Challenge Management for more details. Our Challenge Management article links to topics such as creating and saving custom challenges, adding challenge hints and flags, understanding challenge statistics, and other advanced challenge management features.

Have a Question? Contact Support

If you experience any issues starting or viewing Cloud CTF in your web browser, please refer to the article titled Can't Launch Cloud CTF 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.