Why give your students a way to get RCE on your institutions servers through anything less than perfect file upload implementation.
For a .tar? I wish you the best...
Instead of that, simplify.
Use unique salts for each assignment per student.
Align hashes with those salts to check the outcome for each students assignment.
Literally have them send you a CTF style sha256 string.
Do it step by step where each step doesn't depend on the next, grade as a percentage of flags accurately procured.
When I was 23, Obamacare had recently passed and it allowed me to remain on my father's insurance as a recent college grad.
I broke my talus (ankle sit-bone) into 3 pieces. Xray showed nothing. Cat scan showed nothing.
Dads insurance covered the MRI. Broke in 3 pieces. I otherwise would've been told it was a sprain. I'd have suffered life long consequences (worse than what I've got).
It didn't cost me a dime. It cost my dad like $300. It would have literally cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars without Obamacare.
EDIT: @Shalafi or whoever tf, I have blocked you ages ago and you're tagged "needlessly argumentative over everything"
I'm not going to unblock you to read what I already know is you being needlessly argumentative over everything.
Also if I'm correct, do yourself a favor and maybe block them as well.
I don't mean this condescendingly, so apologies if it hits that way, but: Have you ever worked hard for something and accomplished what you worked hard towards?
If so, what felt better, "winning" or the process of elevating yourself?
For example when I was 15 my team won a baseball championship. Tbh the final games were well fought. We swept the post season. I reflect very positively on that post season. I don't reflect much on the season itself. But more than the win, I reflect on being on a losing team for all of little league. I went from worst in the league to best in the league. Nothing to show for it (little league). On to the bigger league. Back to being worst in the league. Slowly my team grew, year 3 we dominated. I reflect on 5 years of failure, hours spent in batting cages, being the best (in little league) and still failing, not that final season, sure that final post season a bit, but not that final strikeout that clinched the league.
(Also to clarify this "best in little league" shit.... My dad kept stats and we still talk about it. I batted .928, slugging over 2000%, won the home run derby, hit the only home run in the all star game where I went 2 for 2 and struck out all 6 batters I faced... I belonged in our little leagues major division and I was in the minors; I didn't "make it", so instead dominated the minors. It was kinda silly but not enough for a championship.)
In fact, if it weren't for all that failure, I'd barely reflect on it. I'm sure we had teammates who were in their first year of the big leagues, barely recall anything of that experience. It meant more because I had been tempered in failure.
As another example, I have been playing guitar for 30 years. When I was in college people would say "wow you're so gifted." And it would legitimately piss me off. Like, mother fucker no I am not "gifted", I spent my life working on this. Call it talent, call it skill. It's not a gift. There's no satisfaction in my skill pleasing someone where I feel my hard work is actively minimized or reduced to something I didn't fight for.
In both of these, for me, I am valuing the process. Not the outcome.
To over share, my dad was in recent years inducted to a sports hall of fame. He's old as fuck. Retired for over a decade. Do you think he values that award, or the process that got him that award? I don't need to ask him. Guy hates presents. Didn't even post the photos of his induction to his Facebook. Did post pictures of a rare bird on his feeder recently.
In the example, you're comparing yourself to others, by matter of outcome. And getting upset in the process.
Instead let's say you stick to the process. You investigate why you failed. Parallel parking? Okay, fuck that. I'm gonna parallel park my mom's van 10x a day when I get home from school and not fuck that up next time.
Now you've learned to humbly overcome failure rather than get emotional about comparing your outcome to that of others.
Only google can suck our butts! 🦜 🍑 🤠
I mean the need becomes immediately necessary if you've ever accomplished anything.
Holy shit I sound like an asshole.
Okay, what I mean is, everyone you look up to is just as empty as you. Well, maybe. Sort of.
The only people who feel sated by an achievement end up as has-beens. That never were. And in this esoteric sense, even those that "are", arent.
All that mumbo jumbo, I mean, no one is their achievements. And if they are, they're hollow.
Okay, so I'm coming off anesthesia and sounding like a guy at burning man. But I'm serious. The bottom line is this
Your self worth is defined by the process. Not the outcome. And if the process is at a halt due to an outcome, just trust the process. Try again.
The trying again will give you self worth. Not the outcome.
Very Christ-like.
For getting your stuff available over the internet, y I recommend a secure tunnel with wire guard between your vps and servers running the services.
Make your vps an authentication portal using stuff like Authelia and Fail2ban.
If you're really needing out, get ELK stood up for free and get agents on your containers/services to keep visibility into any potential... Anything
Ok perfect we have a concrete example. Learning language. Your peers learning faster, it's a bummer.
Some immediate thoughts: how are they learning? How do you learn? If you're doing what they're doing and not getting the same results, Is there something that can help you get where they're getting that meets you with your strengths rather than whatever might be holding you back? You're on an international message board. I'm not bilingual so no chance I can help you but there is almost definitely someone reading this post that fluently speaks the language you're struggling with and also speaks English.
What has worked for you learning-wise? And if you don't know, what are you knowledgeable about? What made you knowledgeable?
I am needing to pass a very hard exam that I've missed twice on already. My normal study methods ain't working. I gotta adapt and go in discord and chat with folks. Not excited, but it's what's gonna fill the gaps.
You got this. Oh, shit, you know what. I'm not a John Mayer fan really but his teacher from berkley? Tomo fujita? Here. Here's his mantra. He posts a similar video every fucking day. Literally.
It sounds like you're trying something that's not working. There's 1000 ways to do anything. Try something that mirrors something else that's worked for you. Or try something new. Don't keep trying the same way that isn't working, but keep trying.