Why Can't I Ping or SSH to IPs outside of the Range?¶

Are the Tools Disabled?¶

A common question our team encounters is why students and instructors are unable to ping or connect to hosts that are located outside of the Virginia Cyber Range. This is not because networking tools like ping, SSH, and traceroute have been disabled on our virtual machines, but because all network traffic is blocked before leaving the student’s Cyber Range network bubble or accessing the Internet.

The Cyber Range is similar to a gun range in that it does not allow stray packets to exit the safety of the range, firewalling both egress traffic (protecting the Internet from the student’s dangerous traffic), as well as ingress traffic (protecting students from would be Internet packets).

For a little more information related to network and Internet limits placed on Cyber Range virtual machines, please see the article titled What are the network and Internet limits placed on my Range virtual machines?. For more information about Cyber Range network restrictions, such as what type of traffic is and is not allowed, please see the article titled Cyber Range Network Restrictions.

Using Networking Tools in the Classroom¶

Using Multi-VM Exercises¶

If you are an instructor looking to use tools such as ping and SSH in the classroom, any multi-VM exercise environment, such as the “Ubuntu 18 XFCE and Ubuntu 18 SSH environment” or “Kali + Vulnerable Windows” will provide you with the ability to use multi-host networking tools like this without breaking the intentional security model of the Cyber Range.

If you decide to provision one of these multi-VM exercise environments in your Cyber Range course, each student will get their own multi-VM network to practice on without risk of interfering with, or flooding the network of, the instructor or other students.

Alternative, External Web-Tools¶

On the occasion you are looking to use networking tools like ping, SSH, or traceroute against Internet hosts outside the Cyber Range, there are a number of networking web-based tools you might consider, especially if you're unable to install tools like Putty on your local PC/laptop. A few examples of such web-tools are:

Such tools can also be run from any modern web browser, even from chromebooks or tablets.

More Information - DNS¶

For more information about how DNS works in the Virginia Cyber Range, please see the article titled Doing DNS Labs & Exercises on the Range.

Have a Question? Contact Support¶

Note

Students: Please reach out to your Instructor who can submit a ticket to our Support Team on your behalf.

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.