Copied Environment Management Overview¶

How Are Copied Environments Managed?¶

Copied Environment Management is a feature in the Cyber Range that empowers instructors to better control and manage their saved environments, also referred to as copied environments. This feature allows instructors to:

View all their saved environments in one place
Delete environments they no longer need
Share environments with other instructors as either a linked or copied shared environment

This functionality is designed to streamline course management, reduce clutter, and enhance collaboration between instructors across and within organizations.

Key Features¶

Linked sharing allows recipients to view the environment and create exercise environments from it in their courses.

Recipients cannot modify, overwrite, or re-share the environment, as they are not the owners.
Recipients will always receive the latest version when creating or reinstalling environments.
Linked sharing is limited to instructors within the same organization.
Access can be revoked at any time. When access is revoked, users can still use existing environments but cannot create new ones from the shared environment.

Copied sharing gives recipients their own independent version of the environment.

Recipients become the owners and can fully manage the received environment as their own.
Upon acceptance, the copied environment is frozen in time and does not receive updates from the original.
Can be shared both within and across organizations.
Owners of the original environment cannot revoke access from the recipient after copied sharing.

Environment Versioning¶

An instructor can make changes to a copied environment and save the changes by overwriting the environment. When an instructor overwrites a copied environment, it is given a version number created using the format YYYY.M.D.N (e.g., 2025.5.12.1). Only the latest version is kept and older versions are removed automatically.

Ownership and Deletion¶

If the owner of a copied environment is deleted or reassigned, ownership may be transferred to the most recent user with access.
Deleted copied environments are removed from view for all those it is shared with. However, active exercise environments based on them will continue to function normally until no longer in use.

Accepting Shared Environments¶

Shared environments require recipients to accept an invitation via a one-time email link before they appear in their account. Access is only granted if the instructor has permission to create environments in the selected organization. If an instructor belongs to multiple organizations, they will be asked to choose which one to associate with the copied environment.

Accessing Copied Environment Management¶

You can access your environments via the "My Copied Environments" menu in the left-hand navigation. From there, you can view, edit, delete, or share your environments with other instructors.

Environment Limits & Warnings¶

There is a limit to the number of copied environments instructors can own at a time, to help you manage these limits, the Cyber Range provides reminders as you approach them:

User Limit: Up to 30 copied environments per organization.
Organization Limit: Up to 100 copied environments total.

Warning Messages¶

Instructors will see warnings in the My Copied Environments page as they approach their limits:

At 80% usage:
- "You are approaching the allowed limit of X copied environments for Organization A. To avoid reaching the limit, please delete any unused copied environments to free up space."
At 100% usage:
- "You have reached the limit of X copied environments for Organization A. To create a new copied environment, please delete some existing ones to free up space."

Note

Link sharing does not count toward the limit, as you are granting access to your copied environment to another instructor rather than creating a new copied environment.

Have a Question? Contact Support¶

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.