Welcome to EDU-CTF 2026

Account Registration

  • You will need a registration code to create a CTFd account. Please contact the TAs or the professor to obtain the code.
  • Our system only allows registration with a campus email address. The following email domains are supported: nycu.edu.tw, ntu.edu.tw, ntust.edu.tw, nthu.edu.tw, ncu.edu.tw
  • Email verification is required to complete registration. If you do not receive the verification email, please check your spam/junk folder.
  • After registering, please generate a CTFd access token by going to Settings -> Access Tokens. Please do not set an expiration date for the access token. Copy the access token and store it in a secure location. You will need it when setting up the VPN.

NetBird VPN Setup

  • We use NetBird as the VPN platform for this semester. Please install the NetBird client from the NetBird installation page.
  • After installing NetBird, have your CTFd access token ready and configure your NetBird profile as follows:
    1. Profile Name: You may use the default profile name or create your own.
    2. Management Server: Select Self-hosted and enter the following server URL: https://swan.zoolab.org
    3. Click Connect. When connecting for the first time, a browser window should automatically open and display the NetBird sign-in page.
    4. On the sign-in page, select Continue with oidc-swan. On the next page, enter the following information:
      CTFd email address: edu-ctf:<your-verified-ctfd-email-address-without-quotes>
      CTFd API token: your-generated-CTFd-access-token
    5. If your login information is correct, you should see a successful login message, and the NetBird client should automatically connect to the VPN.

Access the Challenges

  • Once you are connected to the VPN, you can access the challenge server using either of the following hostnames: chals1 or edu-chals1.
  • If you need to create a reverse shell from a challenge back to your machine, remember to use your NetBird-assigned client IP instead of your public IP address.