Learn Linux Command by Playing Bandit Wargame [Level 12 → Level 13]

Learn linux command by playing Bandit wargame. The Bandit wargame is aimed at absolute beginners. It will teach the basics needed to be able to play other wargames. Below is the solution of Level 12 → Level 13.

In this post we will learn about various compression techniques and
how to decompress file. We will learn how to convert binary to hex file
and vice-versa.

The password for the next level is stored in the file data.txt, which is a hexdump of a file that has been repeatedly compressed. For this level it may be useful to create a directory under /tmp in which you can work using mkdir. For example: mkdir /tmp/myname123. Then copy the datafile using cp, and rename it using mv (read the manpages!)

grep, sort, uniq, strings, base64, tr, tar, gzip, bzip2, xxd, mkdir, cp, mv, file

Command to connect remote host :

ssh [email protected] -p 2220

password is

5Te8Y4drgCRfCx8ugdwuEX8KFC6k2EUu

As mentioned in question make a new directory in /tmp and rename the file.

xxd

program is used to make a hexdump or to do the reverse. Option

-r

convert hexdump into the binary. File

myfile.txt

is a hexdump and convert it into a binary file

myfile1.bin

using command

xxd -r myfile.txt > myfile1.bin

Using command

file myfile1.bin

, we found that

myfile1.bin

is a gzip compressed data.

zcat

is a program supplied with

gzip

and is used to decompress gzip compressed files.

zcat myfile1.bin > myfile2

Again using

file

command on

myfile2

, we found that it is bzip2 compressed data.

bzcat

program is supplied with

bzip2

and is used to decompress bzip2 compressed files.

bzcat myfile2 > myfile3

myfile3

is gzip compressed file so use

zcat

program to decompress it in

myfile4

.

myfile4

is a POSIX tar archive.

tar

program is used for archiving file and options

x

is used to extract an archive,

f

is used to specify name of the tar archive and

v

is used for more detailed listing.

tar -xvf myfile4

This command outputs file

data5.bin

which is again a tar archive. Again use

tar

program on

data5.bin

which outputs

data6.bin

.

data6.bin

is a bzip2 compressed file and use

bzcat

program to decompress it to

myfile7

.

myfile7

is a tar archive and use

tar

program which outputs

data8.bin

.

data8.bin

is a gzip compressed file and use

zcat

to decompress it to file

myfile9

.

myfile9

contains ASCII text and

cat myfile9

tells the password for the next level.

The password for the next level is

8ZjyCRiBWFYkneahHwxCv3wb2a1ORpYL

.

Reference : The Linux Command Line – A Complete Introduction
https://linux.die.net/man/1/xxd

.