Crypto-vm is a simple interface to, and archive for, cryptography related CTF challenges.

Crypto-vm is designed to be easy to start and access problems on. You will need the following:

• A Linux (ideally, possibly OS X) machine. Not a VM!
• Vagrant, Python, and VirtualBox installed.

After you've met the requirements, clone this repository and run "runme.sh"! This may take some time, but should automatically import, configure, and run the VM containing all of the challenges. After this setup completes, you can visit the server at "localhost:8082".

For some problems it is likely you will want mathematical tools, such as Mathmatica or similar. Python with Crypto-vm does not currently supply any tools, you should do any work and scripting external to crypto-vm.

Crypto challenges are often competely platform independent, and very easily re-hosted. Additionally, many newer CTF competitiors find crypto problems unapproachable, and having a collection designed to make them easy to practice on could help.

That said, building a similar project that includes all problem types, or is built for another category would probably be a great idea! Fork and build it!

Adding a new problem to crypto-vm is pretty straight forward.

If your problem serves only static content (ex: it is just a description and some ciphertexts), setup is trivial. Run the new_problem script and fill out the markdown files and setup.sh configuration.

If your problem requires only a simple server (ex: server.py, or similar self contained) again setup is simple. Running the new_problem script will do most of the work for you. You can add server that are either already properly server (they use sockets) or servers intended to run under a service like xinetd. Currently crypto-vm will help you setup either init.d or xinetd configurations.

Other more complex problem designs are possible, but may not be a good fit for crypto-vm.

Please read the Readme in the problems directory for more details.

After completing the setup for you problem, testing it (from a clean 'vagrant up' please!), submit a pull request and we'll add it!

New CTF participants often have trouble engaging with cryptographic challenges, or finding ones they can practice with. Crypto-vm is intended to be an easy to use and helpful resource for those new to cryptographic CTF challenges to practice with them in a helpful environment.