Topology View
The Topology panel visualizes the entire simulated network. Think of it as Google Maps — but instead of streets and buildings, it draws the connections between computers, switches, and servers.
What's on the Screen?
Each box on the topology canvas represents a network device, and the lines between them represent physical links (such as an Ethernet cable). When packets are transmitted across the network, you'll see small glowing dots moving along the links — the color of each dot indicates the protocol.
Device Types
SimNet supports the following device types, each with a distinct appearance:
| Device Type | Appearance | Description |
|---|---|---|
| PC | Blue box (dark blue fill, blue border) | A regular computer — could be your device or another user's |
| Switch | Light-blue box (dark blue fill, bright blue border) | Forwards packets within a local area network |
| Server | Red box (dark red fill, red border) | Provides network services (e.g. HTTP) |
| Router | Green box (dark green fill, green border) | Forwards packets between different network segments |
Each box shows the device name (e.g. PC2, SWITCH1), and if the device has an IP address, it's displayed in smaller text below the name.
The "YOU" Marker
The player device you control has a prominent YOU marker above it, surrounded by a special glowing border. This lets you spot yourself at a glance among many devices — like picking yourself out in a group party photo.
Mouse Controls
Zoom
Use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom the topology view:
- Scroll up: Zoom In
- Scroll down: Zoom Out
The zoom range is 0.3x to 3.0x. Zooming is centered on the mouse cursor's position, so you can point at a device and zoom in to focus on it precisely.
Pan
Hold the left mouse button and drag to pan the entire topology view. This is handy when there are many devices and the zoomed-in view can no longer show everything at once.
Auto-Center
Every time a challenge loads or the topology updates, the view automatically adjusts the zoom level and centers itself, ensuring all devices fit within view.
Hover for Info
Hovering the mouse over any device pops up a tooltip showing:
- Device name and type: e.g. "pc2 (pc)"
- IP address: the device's network address
- MAC address: the device's hardware address
You'll use this info frequently when running Terminal commands. For example, to ping a server, hover over it to see its IP address, then type ping <IP> in the Terminal.
Click for Details
Clicking on a device opens a Device Modal with a more complete view of the device state:
- Network configuration (IP / MAC / interfaces)
- Which other devices it connects to
- Current operating status
Click outside the modal or the close button to return to the topology view.
Packet Animations
When packets travel across the network (e.g. when you run ping), you'll see glowing dots move from the sender along the link to the receiver. The dot colors match the protocol colors used in the Traffic panel:
- Gray — Ethernet
- Orange — ARP (Address Resolution Protocol)
- Purple — IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4)
- Cyan — TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
- Green — HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
This gives you an intuitive view of "how packets move between devices" rather than just rows of text in a list. Paired with the Traffic panel, it becomes much easier to understand how network protocols actually work.