Post

OverTheWire: Bandit Level 7 → Level 8

The Bandit wargames are aimed at absolute beginners. It will teach the basics needed to be able to play other wargames.

Level Goal

The password for the next level is stored in the file data.txt next to the word millionth

Commands you may need to solve this level

grep, sort, uniq, strings, base64, tr, tar, gzip, bzip2, xxd

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> whatis grep  
grep (1)             - print lines that match patterns

> whatis sort  
sort (1)             - sort lines of text files

> whatis uniq  
uniq (1)             - report or omit repeated lines

> whatis strings  
strings (1)          - print the sequences of printable characters in files

> whatis base64  
base64 (1)           - base64 encode/decode data and print to standard output

> whatis tr  
tr (1)               - translate or delete characters

> whatis tar  
tar (1)              - an archiving utility

> whatis gzip  
gzip (1)             - compress or expand files

> whatis bzip2  
bzip2 (1)            - a block-sorting file compressor, v1.0.8

> whatis xxd  
xxd (1)              - make a hexdump or do the reverse.

Note: All commands don’t have to be used to complete level

Helpful Reading Material

How to Use Grep Command in Linux [12 Useful Examples]

Head command in Linux with examples - GeeksforGeeks

Solution

View the contents of the current working directory

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bandit7@bandit:~$ ls  
data.txt

Peek at the data that is present in the file. This can be achieved using the head command

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bandit7@bandit:~$ head -n 10 data.txt   
binning WnfnFPqkuhl2nwHBohzn2C4L5W0gwcLq  
abuts v8PAwDdkGDdp5NsJ7ZFM5A7TJ5MkYDbm  
fathead wBhCy0fqvbQdexz5kMKBtGoSWgXw7s0H  
attacks 3GzwnGiZnBDdVuHivJk1pEfOOYu7uOTa  
lopping H9hzviFp1QO4WF8EzcQNl5MDz5r1bzUC  
tyrannosaurus WxtYXVar4sgInHp7YUpTzOjdUw1Ww0x8  
reservists QDidoX6BN1MDTi0QwA6Vt82L9Rb64cm3  
atrophy's mSpCwP9VgcGRn1SCD8R9bb9cPBl2yqkW  
bolt's 726RB3lt2RmeCtbWEQ8lhUAxVBJfepy0  
Klondikes wVh3ILxQAsKg8WNnFHp8GxtnSu213GbR

(The -n flag allows us to specify how many lines to print from the start of the file. We can use the tail command to look at the last n lines of a file)

We know the password is next to the word “millionth” in the file. We can look for this pattern by using the grep command

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bandit7@bandit:~$ grep millionth data.txt   
millionth cvX2JJa4CFALtqS87jk27qwqGhBM9plV

We have found the password for the next level !!

Logout of the current session and use the password of user bandit8 to access the next level

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> ssh [email protected] -p 2220  
This is a OverTheWire game server. More information on http://www.overthewire.org/wargames

[email protected]'s password: cvX2JJa4CFALtqS87jk27qwqGhBM9plV
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.