Join the game: the MAZE DevOps game from ITSumma
We have already talked a little about how we arrange quests for participants of IT conferences. Today we are launching an online game for admins (the idea of ​​the quest has been reworked and supplemented) - the Maze. Under the cut - her story. Get involved!
At our booth at Highload and RHS, dozens of curious people solved nontrivial tasks - like, "the administrator quit, the site crashed, urgently needs to be fixed." It all started with what we thought - admins love intricate problems, not just the routine ones “create me an FTP account”. As a task for the participants, they took an example from our practice - and we had to deal with a lot of extraordinary cases. Everyone liked it, but we liked the hype:
')
Therefore, it was decided to make the game online - to bring together such tasks, divide them into three levels of difficulty, bring a competitive spirit.
For conferences, we did everything on regular virtual flops, but this is slow and redundant, so for a complete solution, we chose LXC containerization - this makes it cheap to fully emulate Linux.
Now the game is a server with virtual machines based on LXC, which are deployed from prepared images using Ansible-playbooks. Images are prepared manually, of varying complexity, with different types of inherent problems.
The user logs in via Facebook, selects the difficulty level of the task, he is given SSH access to the prepared environment and a link to the site where he can see the results of his work. The task takes 15 to 45 minutes (depending on complexity), after the allotted time has expired, the virtual machine is reset to its original state, and access is disabled.
In the first public version, the tasks are fairly simple, but this will only be a running in of the basic mechanics. So far, only three tasks - one for each level of complexity. After launching, we will spend some time on assessing the loads and successes of the players and, based on the data obtained, we will expand the range of tasks and their complexity.
Next, we will release more complex and interesting versions, measure the time for solving problems, roll out a table of records.
The basic plan is, of course, to increase the number and diversify the tasks. We have accumulated a large enough baggage of very different non-standard problems - there is definitely something to share with you :)
I would also like to experiment with the semi-automatic generation of task templates from pre-prepared small blocks of “problems”. So far there are only theoretical assumptions about how this could be implemented, and it is not quite clear whether everything will work out, but not using this possibility would be a crime.
And finally - to give the opportunity to perform tasks directly on the site: to make a separate screen, on which the console would be in the correct container, a timer, labels for corrected and uncorrected problems.
Ivan Svezhentsev is a leading web developer responsible for the current release. Everything will break, but he will not sleep (do not break, please!).
Sergey Sporyshev is a leading web developer, author of the game interface. So far, of course, rather modest, but, given the further plans, he will have more work to do. Previously, it was seen as the main developer of "Project 1917".
Kirill Fatin is a senior system administrator from our support team, engaged in the design and development of the entire core of the game, has accumulated knowledge on various tricky admin problems we have encountered over the years.
The game is here .
Server bandwidth with games - at the same time ten light, five medium and three difficult tasks. If you are not allowed - wait a bit, look at the spinner. There is no queue as such, from whom ajax first flew away, and a car will be given to that :)
We are looking forward to feedback and suggestions, both on assignments, and on the very format of the game. If you break or find a vulnerability - this is also very interesting, be sure to write. And share the results!
How do we come up with the game
At our booth at Highload and RHS, dozens of curious people solved nontrivial tasks - like, "the administrator quit, the site crashed, urgently needs to be fixed." It all started with what we thought - admins love intricate problems, not just the routine ones “create me an FTP account”. As a task for the participants, they took an example from our practice - and we had to deal with a lot of extraordinary cases. Everyone liked it, but we liked the hype:
')
Therefore, it was decided to make the game online - to bring together such tasks, divide them into three levels of difficulty, bring a competitive spirit.
For conferences, we did everything on regular virtual flops, but this is slow and redundant, so for a complete solution, we chose LXC containerization - this makes it cheap to fully emulate Linux.
What is the result?
Now the game is a server with virtual machines based on LXC, which are deployed from prepared images using Ansible-playbooks. Images are prepared manually, of varying complexity, with different types of inherent problems.
The user logs in via Facebook, selects the difficulty level of the task, he is given SSH access to the prepared environment and a link to the site where he can see the results of his work. The task takes 15 to 45 minutes (depending on complexity), after the allotted time has expired, the virtual machine is reset to its original state, and access is disabled.
In the first public version, the tasks are fairly simple, but this will only be a running in of the basic mechanics. So far, only three tasks - one for each level of complexity. After launching, we will spend some time on assessing the loads and successes of the players and, based on the data obtained, we will expand the range of tasks and their complexity.
Next, we will release more complex and interesting versions, measure the time for solving problems, roll out a table of records.
Future plans
The basic plan is, of course, to increase the number and diversify the tasks. We have accumulated a large enough baggage of very different non-standard problems - there is definitely something to share with you :)
I would also like to experiment with the semi-automatic generation of task templates from pre-prepared small blocks of “problems”. So far there are only theoretical assumptions about how this could be implemented, and it is not quite clear whether everything will work out, but not using this possibility would be a crime.
And finally - to give the opportunity to perform tasks directly on the site: to make a separate screen, on which the console would be in the correct container, a timer, labels for corrected and uncorrected problems.
Starring
Ivan Svezhentsev is a leading web developer responsible for the current release. Everything will break, but he will not sleep (do not break, please!).
Sergey Sporyshev is a leading web developer, author of the game interface. So far, of course, rather modest, but, given the further plans, he will have more work to do. Previously, it was seen as the main developer of "Project 1917".
Kirill Fatin is a senior system administrator from our support team, engaged in the design and development of the entire core of the game, has accumulated knowledge on various tricky admin problems we have encountered over the years.
Go!
The game is here .
Server bandwidth with games - at the same time ten light, five medium and three difficult tasks. If you are not allowed - wait a bit, look at the spinner. There is no queue as such, from whom ajax first flew away, and a car will be given to that :)
We are looking forward to feedback and suggestions, both on assignments, and on the very format of the game. If you break or find a vulnerability - this is also very interesting, be sure to write. And share the results!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/335922/
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