Lion Cipher Lab
Explore your own network from the command line
- Foundations
- Beginner
- ~30 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
Before you can defend, attack, or troubleshoot a network, you have to be able to see one — and the fastest network in the world to practice on is the one your own computer is already sitting on. The four built-in tools in this lab (find your address, test if something is reachable, trace the path to it, turn a name into an address) are the exact commands professionals reach for first, every single day, in the SOC, on the help desk, and on an incident call. Learning to read their output is basic literacy that every cyber role quietly assumes you already have.
What you'll learn
- reading network config
- IP addresses (private vs public)
- ping & latency
- traceroute & hops
- DNS lookups
Steps in this lab
- Open a terminal — your window into the network
- Find your own address and network config
- What that address actually means: private vs public
- Test whether something is reachable: ping
- Trace the path a packet takes: tracert / traceroute
- Turn a name into an address: nslookup / dig
- What you just learned — and where it goes next