CTFd Backup Tool

Introduction

CTFd Backup Tool is a Python script for backing up data from CTFd (Capture The Flag platform) instances. This tool helps users to create backups of challenges, teams, users, scoreboard, and an overview file for easy writeup creation. It allows you to maintain a local copy of your CTFd data for offline usage or disaster recovery.

Features

• Backup challenges, teams, users, scoreboard, and an overview file.
• 🚀 Incremental backup support - Skip unchanged files to save time and bandwidth
• 📊 Real-time progress bars - Visual download progress for files and overall backup progress
• Organize challenges by category in the overview file for easy writeup creation.
• Retrieve data from CTFd instances via API.
• Save challenges including descriptions and files.
• Download files associated with challenges.
• � Backup statistics and progress tracking
• User-friendly command-line interface.

Installation

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/mlgzackfly/CTFd-Backup-Tool.git

2. Navigate to the cloned directory:

   cd ctfd-backup-tool

3. Install the required dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

1. Navigate to the directory where the script is located.

2. Run the script using Python with the new parameterized interface:

   Basic Usage:

   python ctfbackup.py --url <url> --username <username> --password <password>

   Using Short Options:

   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password>

   Incremental Backup:

   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> --incremental
   # or
   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> -i

   Force Full Backup:

   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> --force-full
   # or
   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> -f

   Custom Output Directory:

   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> --output-dir /path/to/backup

   Quiet Mode (for scripts):

   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> --quiet -i

   Disable Progress Bars:

   python ctfbackup.py -u <url> -n <username> -p <password> --no-progress

3. The script will start backing up your CTFd instance. Once completed, you will find the backups in the directory named after your CTFd instance.

Command Line Options

• --url, -u: CTFd instance URL (required)
• --username, --user, -n: CTFd username (required)
• --password, -p: CTFd password (required)
• --incremental, -i: Enable incremental backup mode
• --force-full, -f: Force full backup (ignore metadata)
• --output-dir, -o: Custom output directory
• --no-progress: Disable progress bars
• --quiet, -q: Suppress non-essential output
• --verbose, -v: Enable verbose output for debugging
• --help, -h: Show help message and exit

Incremental Backup

The tool tracks file metadata in .backup_metadata.json to determine which files have changed. This significantly reduces backup time for subsequent runs by:

• Comparing file sizes and modification times
• Calculating SHA256 hashes to detect content changes
• Skipping files that haven't changed since the last backup

Progress Tracking

The tool now includes comprehensive progress tracking:

• Real-time file download progress with speed and ETA indicators
• Overall backup progress showing current challenge being processed
• Visual progress bars for teams and users backup with pagination support
• Detailed statistics at the end showing efficiency metrics

Example

First time backup (full):

python ctfbackup.py --url demo.ctfd.com --username admin --password secret123
# or using short options
python ctfbackup.py -u demo.ctfd.com -n admin -p secret123

Subsequent backups (incremental):

python ctfbackup.py -u demo.ctfd.com -n admin -p secret123 --incremental
# or
python ctfbackup.py -u demo.ctfd.com -n admin -p secret123 -i

Automated script with quiet mode:

python ctfbackup.py -u demo.ctfd.com -n admin -p secret123 -i --quiet

Custom output directory:

python ctfbackup.py -u demo.ctfd.com -n admin -p secret123 --output-dir ./my-ctf-backup

Output example:

🔄 Running incremental backup...
🔍 Processing challenges...
📚 Challenges: 100%|████████████| 25/25 [00:30<00:00,  1.2challenge/s]
📥 challenge.zip: 100%|████████| 2.5MB/2.5MB [00:02<00:00, 1.2MB/s]
- ✔ Web Challenge 1
    ⬇️ Downloaded file: challenge.zip
📚 Processing: Crypto Challenge 1...
- ✔ Crypto Challenge 1  
    ⏭️ Skipped file: crypto.py (unchanged)
    ✅ Updated file: solution.txt
👥 Teams: 100%|████████████████| 5/5 [00:05<00:00,  1.0page/s]
👤 Users: 100%|████████████████| 10/10 [00:08<00:00,  1.2page/s]

==================================================
📊 BACKUP STATISTICS
==================================================
🔄 Mode: Incremental Backup
📁 Total files: 25
⬇️ Downloaded: 3
✅ Updated: 2
⏭️ Skipped: 20
💾 Efficiency: 80.0% files skipped
==================================================