💥 BreakOps

Learn DevOps by fixing what's broken.

BreakOps is an open-source, community-driven platform of hands-on labs where you land inside a broken Linux environment, and your only job is to fix it.

No multiple choice. No tutorials. Just a terminal, a problem, and your skills.

---

---

🧠 Philosophy

Most DevOps learning platforms teach you how things should work.

BreakOps teaches you what to do when they don't.

Every lab drops you into a realistic broken scenario ; a disk that's full, a service that won't start, permissions that are wrong, the kind of things you'll actually face in production. You diagnose, you fix, you learn.

---

🚀 Quick Start

☁️ Zero install (recommended)

Click one of the buttons above to launch BreakOps instantly in your browser — no Docker or Git setup needed.

	Gitpod	GitHub Codespaces
Free tier	50h/month	60h/month
Speed	~30s	~45s
Requires	GitHub/GitLab account	GitHub account

💻 Local install

git clone https://github.com/elafkaihi/BreakOps.git
cd BreakOps
./install.sh
breakops start linux-001

Requirements: Docker, Bash, Git

🎮 Commands

breakops list               # List all available labs
breakops start <lab-id>     # Launch a broken environment
breakops hint               # Progressive hint (run from another terminal)
breakops check              # Validate your fix
breakops solution           # Reveal the full solution
breakops reset              # Reset the lab to broken state

---

🗂️ Lab Categories

Category	Status	Labs
🐧 Linux / System	✅ Available	8 labs
☸️ Kubernetes	🔜 Coming soon	—
🏗️ Terraform / IaC	🔜 Coming soon	—
⚙️ CI/CD	🔜 Coming soon	—
☁️ AWS	🔜 Coming soon	—

---

🐧 Linux Labs

ID	Title	Difficulty	Concept
linux-001	Disk Full	🟢 Easy	Disk usage, df, du, log cleanup
linux-002	Permission Hell	🟡 Medium	chmod, chown, file permissions
linux-003	Service Won't Start	🟡 Medium	nginx config, nginx -t, service debugging
linux-004	Cron Gone Silent	🟢 Easy	crontab, cron daemon, script permissions
linux-005	SSH Lockout	🟡 Medium	sshd_config, sshd -t, .ssh permissions
linux-006	OOM Killer Strikes	🟡 Medium	dmesg, ps, memory hog, pkill
linux-007	Firewall Blocked	🟡 Medium	iptables, port rules, ss -tlnp
linux-008	Zombie Apocalypse	🔴 Hard	Zombie processes, ppid, process reaping

---

🔬 How a Lab Works

Each lab is a self-contained Docker container with a broken environment baked in.

labs/
  linux-001-disk-full/
    ├── scenario.yaml    # Title, objective, hints, difficulty
    ├── Dockerfile       # Ubuntu base image
    ├── break.sh         # Script that injects the problem
    └── check.sh         # Script that validates your fix

When you run breakops start linux-001, it:

1. Builds a fresh Docker image with the broken state
2. Drops you into an interactive shell
3. Waits for you to fix the problem
4. Runs check.sh to validate when you're ready

---

🧩 CLI Reference

breakops start <lab-id>     # Launch a lab
breakops list               # List all available labs
breakops hint               # Show the next hint (progressive)
breakobs check              # Check if the lab is fixed
breakops solution           # Show the full solution
breakops reset              # Reset the lab to its broken state

---

📋 Scenario Format

Each scenario is described in a simple YAML file:

id: linux-001
title: Disk Full
category: linux
difficulty: easy
objective: "The application can't write logs anymore. Figure out why and fix it."
hints:
  - "Start by checking the available disk space."
  - "Which directory is consuming the most space?"
  - "Logs are usually stored in /var/log — what do you find there?"
solution: |
  The /var/log directory is full of artificially generated log files.
  Run: du -sh /var/log/* to find the culprit.
  Then: rm /var/log/app/debug.log.* to free up space.
  Verify: df -h should show available space restored.

---

🤝 Contributing

BreakOps lives and grows through community contributions. Adding a new lab is straightforward:

1. Fork the repo
2. Copy labs/_template/ into a new folder: labs/<category>-<id>-<short-name>/
3. Fill in scenario.yaml, Dockerfile, break.sh, check.sh
4. Test it locally with breakops start <your-lab-id>
5. Open a Pull Request

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide and lab design principles.

---

🌍 Roadmap

• MVP — Linux labs + CLI
• Difficulty progression system
• Score & completion tracking (local)
• Kubernetes labs
• Terraform / IaC labs
• Web UI for lab browser
• Community lab submissions
• CI validation for contributed labs

---

📄 License

MIT : free to use, fork, and contribute.

---

Built by DevOps engineers, for DevOps engineers. Break things. Fix them. Get better.