DragonForge is a student-driven, Debian-based platform that transforms IT education through enterprise-grade automation and hands-on certification training.
To bridge the gap between the classroom and the modern IT industry. We don't just teach theory; we provide a live, scalable, and automated environment where students learn by doing, breaking, and fixing, mastering the very workflows that power today's datacenters.
DragonForge is the core of the CTEC IT program. It's a student-driven project that mirrors a real-world datacenter. We believe in "Move Fast, Break Things, Learn" - providing a sandbox where you can experiment, configure, and truly understand how everything works.
You start by using the system, and can progress to contributing to it, gaining unparalleled experience in system deployment, automation, and open-source collaboration.
Choose from modular, pre-configured systems (Base, Desktop, Flex) available to everyone. These define what the system is - a workstation, a server, or a lightweight client.
Within our labs, Ansible Roles transform these builds into their final purpose. This teaches the core IT concept of infrastructure as code and separates the "what" from the "how."
Every environment is tailored for specific certifications (A+, Network+, Security+, CCST), bundling the exact tools and configurations needed for hands-on learning.
We prepare students for their first IT job by giving them experience with the tools and processes they'll use on day one.
Our "Move Fast, Break Things, Learn" philosophy encourages experimentation. Recovery and troubleshooting are core skills.
Students don't just use the system; they see it being managed at scale with PXE, Ansible, and Git, just like a real business.
Advanced students can earn roles as Network Engineers, DevOps, or Sysadmins, contributing directly to the project they use.
DragonForge was born from 25+ years of experience in network engineering and IT education. As a Network Engineering Instructor teaching Cisco CCST curriculum, our founder saw that existing tools created a gap between learning and professional practice.
Frustrated with distributions that made too many decisions for us, we built DragonForge from the ground up on Debian to create a platform that:
DragonForge provides a turnkey solution that does more than save setup time - it transforms your program's capabilities.
Deploy and manage entire computer labs automatically via PXE boot and Ansible. Re-configure rooms for different classes overnight.
Students gain experience with Ansible, Git, and Proxmox, making them job-ready from day one.
The same public builds used in your lab are available for students to install at home, ensuring a seamless learning experience.
DragonForge is and will always be freely available to all students and educators. Our repository, documentation, and tools are open to everyone - because education should have no barriers.
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