As mentioned in Introduction, Verkkoke 1.1 is designed for use in conjunction with a programming assignment.
To do the programming assignment, the student takes the following steps:

Step 3 in the above process description can be reached in two different modes, practice mode and submission mode. When in practice mode, the student can choose the size of the generated topology. A picture of the topology is shown when it has been generated. The student has the option to generate a new topology, if desired. When in submission mode, the system will always generate a new topology of certain, teacher configurable number of nodes, and the topology is not shown to the student.
The student's client builds its routing table based on routing messages sent by the server. The format and content of these messages depend on the simulated routing protocol. Verkkoke 1.1 simulates two routing protocols which are abstractions of real routing protocols. The abstractions are called DV (which stands for Distance Vector) and LS (which stands for Link State), and they are loosely based on the real protocols RIP and OSPF, respectively.
The student's client sends its routing table to the server using a separate submission protocol which uses TCP. The server then compares the submitted routing table with the routing table of the student's node in the simulation.