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Fixing a broken machine on your own is the point. Being stuck on one alone is not. The server is where people compare what they found, argue about the right fix, and hear about every new lab the day it lands — 51 labs and 610 theory questions so far, with more most weeks.

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Free, and no Norboten account needed — the labs run on your machine either way.

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Beyond the labs
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BOT norboten today

New lab · bash-07 — The script that works until Monday
devops track · ubuntu-26.04 · a cron job that runs in the wrong shell, and a check that only a real reboot can pass.

BOT norboten last week

norboten 0.2.0
Ubuntu 26.04 images, the local tutor, the MCP track, rated labs. curl -fsSL norboten.org/install.sh | sh

Every lab, journal and question bank is posted here the day it reaches main, and every release with its notes. No one types these by hand, so nothing is missed.

The channels the server is organised into. Names may shift as the place fills up.

Why join

Four things that are better with other people

When a lab will not pass

You read the check's output, you fixed the symptom, and it still fails — because the cause is elsewhere. Say what you see: the unit, the log line, the output that surprised you. Somebody has been in front of that exact machine.

After you pass

There is rarely one fix. Compare yours with the journal's and with other people's: the interesting part is why one survives a reboot and another does not. This is where most of the learning happens.

What lands next

New labs, journals and question banks are announced as they merge, and so is every release. Ask for the lab you want: the list of what to build next comes from these channels more than from anywhere else.

The person who wrote it

A check that passes when it should not, a briefing that misleads, a fault that is unfair — tell me and it gets fixed, often the same day. I am in the server, not behind a support form.

The channels

Somewhere for each thing

Start here

announcements
The bot posts every new lab, journal and bank, and every release.
general
Anything Norboten, and introducing yourself if you feel like it.

The labs

stuck
A lab that will not pass. Symptoms and commands, not finished solutions.
linux
The linux and rhcsa tracks: systemd, storage, SELinux, networking, boot.
scripting
The bash and python tracks, and tooling you write for your own machines.
devops
Docker, Terraform and Ansible: the labs where the fault is in the config.
ai
The claude, mcp and automation tracks — agents, MCP servers, local models.

Beyond the labs

theory
The question banks and the journals: what an answer really means.
writing-labs
Writing your own lab or bank, and the plugin that drafts one.
ratings
The board, streaks, and what your number did this week.
bugs-and-ideas
A check that is wrong, a briefing that misleads, the next lab.
The bot

It posts, and it writes to you

Two jobs, and it never reads your messages:

Everything the link stores is in the privacy policy, and unlinking takes one click. The tutor and the consultant, which do answer questions, live in the terminal and on this site — not in the server.

House rules

Three of them

  1. No solutions to a lab before others have had a go. Symptoms, commands you tried and what surprised you: all welcome. A finished fix, posted the day the lab lands, takes the lab away from everyone else. Put it behind a spoiler tag if you must.
  2. Rated labs are never discussed. Their faults, criteria and answers stay out of the server entirely — that is what makes a rating worth something.
  3. Be the person you needed when you were stuck. Nobody arrives knowing systemd. Answers that explain the reasoning beat answers that paste a command.

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