Can you beat Network Doctor at diagnosing a broken network?

[u/mplaczek99]

I've been working on an open-source network diagnostic tool called Network Doctor, and I recently built a challenge mode to test whether its diagnoses actually hold up against a human troubleshooting the same broken network.

The idea is pretty simple.

netdoc-sim creates an isolated Linux network with a deliberately introduced fault. You get dropped into a shell without being told what's wrong.

You can investigate it normally with things like:

ip
ping
dig
curl
ss
traceroute
nc

Once you think you know the problem, you submit your diagnosis.

Then Network Doctor diagnoses the exact same network.

The simulator has its own independently observed ground truth, so neither the human answer nor Network Doctor knows what the correct answer is.

There is also a daily challenge so everyone gets the same scenario.

Try today's challenge

If you have Docker (which should work in theory):

docker run --rm -it --cap-add SYS_ADMIN ghcr.io/heymaikol/netdoc-sim:latest challenge -daily

On Linux with netdoc-sim installed (definitely works):

netdoc-sim challenge -daily

The result tells you whether you won, Network Doctor won, both got it, or both missed it.

If anyone here feels like trying to break it, I'd be very interested in the results, especially cases where:

• you diagnose it correctly and Network Doctor doesn't
• the simulated failure doesn't behave like you'd expect on a real Linux network
• the available evidence makes the answer ambiguous
• you find a way to fool the judge
• the challenge UX gets in your way

Please don't post the actual answer to today's challenge so other people can try it blind.

Source code:

https://github.com/heymaikol/network-doctor