Challenge, Medium, on
Start a systemd Service on the First Connection (TCP Socket Edition)
Configure systemd to keep a TCP port open at all times while starting the backing service process only when the first connection arrives.
Challenges
Focused hands-on problems designed to help you hone your DevOps or Server Side skills. Some challenges are more educational, while others are based on real-world scenarios. The platform provides hints and feedback for each challenge, including automated solution checks.
Official Collection
Challenges crafted by iximiuz Labs to help you master DevOps and Server Side topics.
Challenge, Medium, on
Start a systemd Service on the First Connection (Unix Socket Edition)
Configure systemd to keep a Unix domain socket open at all times while starting the backing service process only when the first connection arrives.
Submissions: 36/51
Make One Echo Server Work with Both TCP and Unix Sockets
Make a single echo server listen on either a TCP socket or a Unix domain socket, selected by its command-line argument. The challenge illustrates that the same stream-socket workflow works with two address families (AF_INET and AF_UNIX).
Submissions: 14/31
Write a TCP Client for a Chat Server
Write a TCP client to hold a back-and-forth conversation with a "chat" server: send a line, read the reply, send another line - repeat until the session is over. A hands-on lesson in designing an application protocol on top of a byte-oriented TCP stream.
Independent Authors
Challenges from outstanding independent authors proudly hosted by iximiuz Labs.
eBPF Challenge for Beginners
In this challenge, you’ll debug and fix a deliberately “broken” eBPF program, then prove it’s running by identifying its program and map IDs. Along the way, you’ll explore bpftool, check which helpers are supported, and dig into details like the UID of the loader. Finally, you’ll test your knowledge of eBPF maps by recalling the flag that only inserts a key if it doesn’t already exist.
Submissions: 130/406
Community Collection
Challenges contributed by the community members sharing their knowledge and expertise.
Challenge, Easy, on
The SED command : Survival Guide - What You Must Know
Master **sed**, the essential stream editor for Linux SysAdmins. Progress through 10 tasks: simple & global substitution, regex patterns, line ranges, deletion, insertion, ... Work with realistic Rocky Linux system files in /home/laborant/sed_challenge/.
Submissions: 53/119
AWK Mastery: From Zero to Hero
3-phase AWK challenge on realistic data in /home/laborant/awk_challenge/. Fundamentals: columns, delimiters, formatting. Logic & regex: filters, anchors, conditions, math. Sysadmin: logs, CSVs, metrics, counts, reports. Data lives under /home/laborant/awk_challenge/ (logs/access, data/hr, sys/metrics) and outputs are written to /home/laborant/ files.
Submissions: 29/115