Great box! I have learned new things in the root part. Thanks @disastrpc for the hints, and Congrants @GibParadox and @polarbearer
Rooted this box a few days ago, but didn’t get around to posting about it yet. Really liked this one, thanks @polarbearer and @GibParadox. There are quite a few rabbit holes on thix box, but to me they always felt natural, not like on other boxes. It felt a bit like this box is a machine that’s actually being used by someone and that wasn’t completely deliberately set up to be hacked 
There are many very good hints in this thread here. I don’t really know what to add, but here’s a try:
Foothold: Enumeration really is key. If you always use the same wordlist and don’t find anything, use other wordlists as well. Also take note of everything you find, because even if you can’t directly use it, you might be able to use it later.
User: To own the user, you’ll have to perform quite an interesting exploit. Once you found the right page, some googling will easily give you the correct info. The exploit needs some setup, but isn’t all too complicated in the end.
Root: Another nice exploit that you need to use here. There’s something there that you can control, although it might not seem like it at first. You might be looking for user input to exploit and the way to exploit is quite similiar to that, but it’s aimed at something you might not consider to be “user input”. However, take a close look at the user privileges you have.
I’m having a lot of fun with this box, and learning a lot but I’m stuck on mysql. I’ve spent more time trying to get that to work on my machine than the actual enumeration and exploit discovery. If anyone can point me in the right direction that would be great because so far none of the “simple fixes” on google are working out.
This has been the worst and the best machine for me. WHY? Because its my first box. LOL. Its been a frustrating journey but i feel so happy now. Its been 6 days working on this box (foothold and user - 4 days, root - 2 days). i learned a lot. In the forum you get many clues, but if you are a newbie like me, you dont understand them, but later after clearing each stage you understand. I need to thank @L0J0 and @TazWake for your help. Thanks guys.
Foothold: run different wordlists when you bust those directories. Then you get some creds and then run enum more.
User: Google the box name and you find something similar and then read multiple exploits. This step is most difficult step in this box.
Root: look for user privileges and what can be done with the result.
Finally I can also say ROOTED!!! PM me if you need any help.
“DONT GIVE UP”
Stuck with user, I’ve google and read up on the exploit and found a rogue git but stuck on how to use it. MySQL isn’t one of my strong points. Any hints please PM, thanks.
Rooted. It was truly a love/hate relation. I’ve spent lots of time in rabbitholes, but in the end it was really woth it. Root part is quite straightforward, but fun. User part needs a lot of patience, but remember to look for bad practices while enumerating.
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@thescriptkiddy said:
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I suspect that is a rabbit hole.
@TazWake said:
@thescriptkiddy said:
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I suspect that is a rabbit hole.
then what should be the next step
@thescriptkiddy said:
@TazWake said:
@thescriptkiddy said:
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I suspect that is a rabbit hole.
then what should be the next step
Look around more.
Solved this challenge today
Lots of hints already on this discussion. I will reiterate some.
- Start by looking for things that normally a web application owners want to hide from you.
- To get foothold use FUZZing. There is no alternate. You may need to use wordlists that contain words commonly used in PHP applications. Search github for those.
- Getting user is little harder but search engine/s are your friend. This technique is a new learning for me.
- Root access is medium level. Don’t overthink. Stick to basics.
Will be happy to give nudge for those you want.
Thanks @polarbearer and @GibParadox
root@admirer:# hostname
hostname
admirer
root@admirer:# ifconfig
ifconfig
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 10.10.10.187 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.10.10.255
inet6 fe80::250:56ff:feb9:4771 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20
inet6 dead:beef::250:56ff:feb9:4771 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x0
ether 00:50:56:b9:47:71 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 13034433 bytes 2068617655 (1.9 GiB)
RX errors 9241 dropped 7918 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 11280599 bytes 3455117373 (3.2 GiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 19 base 0x2000
lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10
loop txqueuelen 1 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 31892 bytes 3147119 (3.0 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 31892 bytes 3147119 (3.0 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
root@admirer:# id
id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
Hi all,
First active machine for me…
I feel I’ve made progress and have found what appears to be useful credential (although I don’t know what I can do with them yet) and I’ve also identified an exploit which I am currently trying to set-up (this is where the issue is).
I need to use the second login page on the box to connect to something (MY hope is that its obvious what) on my local machine. My issue is I cant set-up the something correctly, how do I change the usernames and the passwords for this (I’m using a version called Maria)? Do I need to configure port and things like that? Can I just start Maria and make what I need and expect the exploit to work?
I don’t know if this is overly/pointlessly cryptic and I apologise if it is, I’m just trying to avoid spoiling for others…
Any help/respones/DM’s are much appreciated
Access denied for user 'demo'@'10.10.10.187' (using password: YES)
GETTING THIS ERROR WHEN I TRY TO LOGIN IN THE ad*****.php
- demo is the user i created in my local mysql
Type your comment> @thescriptkiddy said:
Access denied for user 'demo'@'10.10.10.187' (using password: YES)GETTING THIS ERROR WHEN I TRY TO LOGIN IN THE ad*****.php
- demo is the user i created in my local mysql
Grant enough priv.
Type your comment> @Karthik0x00 said:
Type your comment> @thescriptkiddy said:
Access denied for user 'demo'@'10.10.10.187' (using password: YES)GETTING THIS ERROR WHEN I TRY TO LOGIN IN THE ad*****.php
- demo is the user i created in my local mysql
Grant enough priv.
YEAH I GOT IT
THERE WAS SOME MISTAKE IN THE PRIVILEGE QUERY ONLY…
this is not an easy box, I struggled a lot…but I learned a lot of things, both for root and user
Finally Rooted. Jeez this one gave me some trouble. Anticipating that I would breeze right through it because it was an “easy” box was a mistake. I think this should have been a medium but thats just me.
Heres some nudges for everyone bashing their heads into their keyboards:
Foothold: Like everyone has been saying use gobuster, ffuf, or dirsearch and use new lists (the ones from seclists on github worked perfect for me) this should lead you to some good stuff
Foothold part 2: The foothold is the longest part on this one. Once you found where you are supposed to be connect back to yourself 
Root: This was a priv esc I haven’t seen before. straight forward I knew what I had to do but just had trouble finding examples online
Rooted! This box was delicately crafted to annoy the ■■■■ out of you. I’m very grateful though because I learned a lot!
‘FOOTHOLD’: The site is pretty but useless! I had to hear that soundtrack 5 times before I figured out I was being trolled. Other than that, Eternal fuzzing… really! the only way you wont die before you finish that big ■■■ list of text is if you Fuzz Faster U Fool !! After you find that censoring robot guy just remember you are looking for CONTENT (aka files, not directories.
‘USER’: was interesting but mainly because I had to reinstall mysql (mariadb) on my debian box. Once you have the basic info about the remote service, you will even find a demo on the web of how to get juicy stuff. Now that you feel the power, think of the files you found before and which one might have the creds you need. Go get it… then see what you can do with it.
‘ROOT’: Check what you can do with your current user. Then once you find the stuff try to figure out how to Import your instructions there. this was very new to me! loved it.
Rooted a few days ago, funny and not so easy box. Name of the machine is a big hint. For the foothold, enumeration with different wordlists is the key. Then you’ll find some files with useful information in order to understand how the site is built. Read carefully also the comments left in those files, connect the dots and google will be your best friend. There’s a huge vulnerability that can be used to retrieve other informations. Then it’s pretty easy to get user. Escalation to root will require another bit of effort, but looking at what you can do with your user will help a lot. Try to work on it!
Hope this is not a spoiler, if you need some nudges PM me and let me know what you’ve already tried!
Rooted. Recap on my python fundamentals! Big thank you to the box creators!