SadServers
  • Scenarios
  • Dashboard
  • Solutions
    For Individuals For Businesses
  • Ranking
  • Newsletter
  • Documentation
    FAQ Pro Accounts Business Accounts Gift Support API Privacy Troubleshooting Interviews
  • Blog
  • Pricing
  • Gift
    Gift Purchase Gift Redeem
  • About
Log In - Sign Up

Php Troubleshooting Scenarios

advent2025 apache bash c caddy clickhouse csv data processing disk volumes dns docker envoy etcd git golang gunicorn hack haproxy harbor hashicorp vault helm java jenkins json kubernetes linux-other mongodb mysql nginx node.js php podman postgres prometheus python rabbitmq redis sql sqlite ssh ssl supervisord systemd traefik
realistic / interviews new pro business

Php

Scenarios with applications using PHP
# Name Level Time Type
1 "Toulon": Denied Lamp Medium 15 m Fix
"Toulon": Denied Lamp

Scenario: "Toulon": Denied Lamp

Level: Medium

Type: Fix

Access: Business

Description: The security team has asked again Mary and John to implemente more security measures. Unfortunately, this time they have broken the LAMP stack (Apache with PHP) so the frontend is unable get an answer upstream, thus, they need your help again to fix it.

The fixed application should be able to serve the content from the webserver, the problem is a network connectivity, although the logs have valuable informatiion, it has nothing to do with the configuration of the apache server.

Test: curl localhost | head -n1 returns SadServers - LAMP Stack

The "Check My Solution" button runs the script /home/admin/agent/check.sh, which you can see and execute.

Time to Solve: 15 minutes.

2 "Marseille": Rocky security Medium 15 m Fix Pro
"Marseille": Rocky security

Scenario: "Marseille": Rocky security

Level: Medium

Type: Fix

Access: Paid

Description: As the Christmas shopping season approaches, the security team has asked Mary and John to implemente more security measures. Unfortunately, this time they have broken the LAMP stack; the frontend is unable get an answer from upstream, thus they need your help again to fix it.

The application should be able to serve the content from the webserver.

Note for Pro users: direct SSH access is not avaiable (yet) for this scenario.

Test: curl localhost | head -n1 returns SadServers - LAMP Stack

The "Check My Solution" button runs the script /home/admin/agent/check.sh, which you can see and execute.

Time to Solve: 15 minutes.

3 "Bern": Docker web container can't connect to db container. Hard 20 m Fix
"Bern": Docker web container can't connect to db container.

Scenario: "Bern": Docker web container can't connect to db container.

Level: Hard

Type: Fix

Access: Email

Description: There are two Docker containers running, a web application (Wordpress or WP) and a database (MariaDB) as back-end, but if we look at the web page, we see that it cannot connect to the database. curl -s localhost:80 |tail -4 returns:

<body id="error-page"> <div class="wp-die-message"><h1>Error establishing a database connection</h1></div></body> </html>

This is not a Wordpress code issue (the image is :latest with some network utilities added). What you need to know is that WP uses "WORDPRESS_DB_" environment variables to create the MySQL connection string. See the ./html/wp-config.php WP config file for example (from /home/admin).

Test: sudo docker exec wordpress mysqladmin -h mysql -u root -ppassword ping . The wordpress container is able to connect to the database in the mariadb container and returns mysqld is alive.

Time to Solve: 20 minutes.

Send Us Feedback or Get Notified
For announcements like new scenarios. We'll never share your email with anyone else.
SadServersSadServers

Real-world Linux and DevOps scenarios for hands-on learning and technical assessment.

Uptime Robot ratio (30 days)
Product
  • Scenarios
  • For Individuals
  • For Businesses
  • Pricing
Resources
  • FAQ
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
Company
  • About Us
  • Support
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Contact
Connect With Us
info@sadservers.com

Made in Canada 🇨🇦
Updated: 2026-03-06 05:04 UTC – 94935d8