Practical Labs
Hands-on, sandboxed practice powered by the DexNova Lab Runtime — every lab you finish here feeds your competency evidence.
Configuring IPv6 SLAAC for Site Deployment
Configure a Linux interface to support Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC) and verify the generated global unicast address.
Python-based UDP Packet Rate Limiter
Implement a simple rate-limiting algorithm for a UDP receiver to prevent buffer overflows during packet bursts.
TLS Handshake Troubleshooting
Use OpenSSL diagnostics to identify and fix a cipher suite mismatch between an Nginx proxy and a legacy client.
Kubernetes Pod Resource Throttling Analysis
Investigate why a high-priority microservice is experiencing latency spikes using resource observability tools.
GTP-C Signaling Plane Latency Simulation
Calculate the Round Trip Time (RTT) of GPRS Tunneling Protocol Control (GTP-C) messages in a simulated 4G EPC environment.
Kernel-Level Packet Inspection with BPF
Develop a basic eBPF program to track dropped UDP packets at the Linux kernel level.
IPv6 Address Planning for 5G Core
Calculate the necessary prefix size for a new 5G Core user plane segment to support 4096 distinct sub-networks.
TLS Handshake Latency Analysis
Analyze a PCAP file to identify handshake bottlenecks in an HTTPS service.
GTP-U Header Validation
Examine a malformed GPRS Tunneling Protocol User plane header.
NGAP Message Decoding
Decode a binary NGAP (N2 Application Protocol) message using ASN.1 definitions.
Cloud-Native Load Balancer Configuration
Configure an Envoy proxy to handle high-concurrency traffic between microservices.
Kernel-Level Packet Interception
Develop a kernel module probe in C to monitor dropped UDP packets.
SCTP Congestion Handling Analysis
Simulate and analyze SCTP path failure detection in a multi-homed environment.
Kubernetes Pod Network Isolation
Implement NetworkPolicies to restrict cross-namespace traffic in a 5G edge cluster.
IPv4 Subnet Mask Calculation for RAN Clusters
Calculate the correct CIDR prefix for a new collection of base stations.
Bash Scripting for Log Archival
Automate the compression of stale syslogs in a Linux environment.
Service Discovery Health Check
Implement a simple Python health monitor for REST API services.
K8s Resource Quota Enforcement
Restrict namespace resource usage to prevent resource exhaustion.
Diameter Message Routing Analysis
Simulate Diameter agent load balancing based on Application-ID.
Optimizing TCP Congestion Window
Tune Linux kernel parameters for high-latency satellite links.
5G PFCP Session Timeout Debugging
Analyze state machine logs to identify silent session drops.
Subnetting the Management VLAN
Calculate host capacity for a new OAM subnet to support 120 network elements.
Python Scripting for Log Sanitization
Write a script to extract timestamped errors from a raw text log file.
Bash Alias for Service Inspection
Create a secure, persistent alias to inspect specific systemd services.
SQL Query for Subscriber Roaming Audits
Optimize a SQL query to identify roaming subscribers during a specific time window.
Kernel Memory Leak Detection in C
Debug a memory allocation bug in a mock low-level telecom C module.
Kubernetes Resource Quota Breach
Diagnose why a new container deployment in the 5G core fails to schedule despite apparent cluster capacity.
SCTP Multihoming Resilience Test
Simulate a link failure between the MME and eNB to verify SCTP multihoming failover.
Subnetting the 5G Management Plane
Calculate the correct CIDR block for a new 5G OAM management subnet with exactly 120 required hosts.
Bash Script for Log Rotation
Create a script to archive old trace files in the /var/log/telecom directory.
Validate REST API Health Check
Use Python to poll a microservice health endpoint and verify it returns HTTP 200.
Configure Static Route for MEC Edge
Configure a static route on a simulated edge router to reach the local breakout subnet.
Debug Memory Leak in C-Based Proxy
Identify and fix a memory leak in a C program used for lightweight packet processing.
Kubernetes Affinity Policy Enforcement
Configure Pod anti-affinity to ensure high availability of NFV instances.
Diameter Peer Overload Simulation
Model a Diameter signaling storm and measure latency impact on the HSS.
Basic Bash Log Parser
Develop a simple script to count occurrences of a specific HTTP status code from a raw access log file.
REST API Health Probe
Write a Python script to verify the availability of a REST endpoint by performing an HTTP GET request.
SCTP Chunk Analysis
Examine a packet capture excerpt to identify an malformed SCTP chunk during a setup phase.
Nginx Reverse Proxy Load Balancing
Configure an Nginx reverse proxy to distribute traffic between two backend service instances.
Service Discovery Failure Analysis
Troubleshoot a microservice failing to discover its dependency due to misconfigured service discovery settings.
C++ Thread Concurrency Bug
Identify and fix a data race condition in a multi-threaded C++ program performing network metrics aggregation.
5G UPF Flow Control Simulation
Calculate the throughput bottleneck in a 5G user plane function (UPF) given specified packet processing overhead and interface bandwidths.
GTP-U Throughput Optimization
Optimize the MTU and buffer sizes for GTP-U tunnels to maximize throughput.
IPv4 Subnet Mask Calculation
Calculate the correct subnet mask and host range for a new cell site subnetwork.
Linux Process Resource Monitoring
Identify and terminate a rogue process consuming excessive CPU in a telecom gateway container.
SQL Query for Subscriber Billing
Retrieve active subscriber data for a specific billing cycle.
HTTP/2 Stream Multiplexing Analysis
Debug an HTTP/2 connection exhibiting high latency due to head-of-line blocking in the application layer.
SCTP Multihoming Verification
Validate the failover mechanism of an SCTP association between an eNodeB and an MME.
Kubernetes Service Discovery Overhaul
Configure CoreDNS and headless services for microservice discovery in a 5G core cluster.
PFCP Session Teardown Orchestration
Write a Python script to handle batch PFCP session teardown messages upon UPF maintenance.
CrashLoopBackOff
A new Kubernetes deployment never becomes ready. Read the pod events and find the missing configuration.
5G Registration Failure — NG Signalling Down
5G UEs camp on the network but registration never completes. Trace the NGAP signalling path.
Container Network Isolation
Both containers run on the same host, yet the app can't reach the database. Container networking basics.
Backup Permission Denied
A backup job that ran for months suddenly fails with permission errors. Find what changed.
Silent Order Pipeline
Orders flow into the platform but nothing is processed after a release. A classic producer/consumer mismatch.
PDU Session Establishment Failure
UEs register fine and show 5G signal, but every PDU session fails. Read the SMF's rejection cause.
Diameter Peer Overload at HSS During Peak Hour
Watchdog timeouts at 7pm — the load balancer's health checks are the flood.
SSH Service Won't Start
After a maintenance window the jump host refuses SSH. The service log tells the whole story.
Tracking-Area Storm Overloads a Pinned MME
A DNS change collapses the MME pool onto one node — classic EPC pooling failure.
SCTP Association Flapping on the OAM Ring
An association resets every 30 seconds — the answer sits in the switch's MAC table.
Blocked Egress Port
The new payment integration can't connect — one port times out while another works. Read the firewall policy.
Asymmetric Route Blackhole
The branch can reach the internet, but replies from the HQ finance server never come back. Spot the asymmetric routing.
Firewall Auto-Remediation Blackholes All SCTP During a Flood
A DDoS playbook blocks SCTP network-wide — every gNB in the region drops off the core.
New gNB Fails NG Setup with a Node-ID Conflict
A new site cannot register to the 5G core — the SCTP handshake succeeds, so look at NGAP.
IMS Registration Failures for a New SIM Batch
Every subscriber on a fresh SIM batch gets a 403 on REGISTER — trace SIP down to the HSS.
UPF Rejects PFCP Session Establishment for Roamers
Roamers have no data: the SMF is handing the UPF an F-SEID it cannot route to.
DNS Resolution Failure
Users cannot reach the company portal while general internet browsing still works — diagnose from resolver logs and firewall events.
5G-AKA Rejects for a New SIM Batch
A new SIM batch fails every authentication — the vectors never reached the UDM.
URLLC Robots Land on the Wrong Network Slice
A factory's URLLC robots breach their latency SLA — because their traffic isn't on the URLLC slice at all.
GTP-U Error Indication Storm After SGW Failover
Throughput collapses right after an SGW failover — stale TEIDs are unrouting every packet.
MME VNF Refuses to Scale During a Signaling Storm
A national event causes an attach storm; the MME VNF cannot scale out and success rates tumble.
Telemetry Poller Crash-Loops on Malformed Payload
The KPI poller for 42 gNBs keeps restarting; one vendor's payload is the culprit.
Go Metrics Collector Panics on Short gRPC Payload
The Go KPI collector crash-loops on a malformed payload from one agent.
Handover Preparation Failures on a Highway Corridor
Cars lose calls on a highway cluster after a software upgrade — X2 and PCI configuration to the rescue.
Core Subnet Isolation After VLAN Reconfiguration
Two core server subnets stopped reaching each other right after switch maintenance — trace L2/L3 and restore connectivity.
Single-Site Outage After Power Maintenance
One site drops off the network after a power maintenance window — read the site controller before touching the core.
5G Handover KPI Troubleshooting
Read live-simulated KPIs and alarms to isolate the failing stage of the handover chain.