Network Traffic Analysis Module: VMs unstable in connection

HTB Content Academy
1

Hello, serious issue with the Network Traffic Analysis Module on HTB Academy on the following two module sections:
Packet Inception, Dissecting Network Traffic With Wireshark (…/789)
Guided Lab: Traffic Analysis Workflow (…/962)

When you get to the section where you need to launch your pwnbox instance, and the target instance… you must connect to the target instance via pwnbox > nomachine per the instructions, to capture traffic with wireshark.

The problem is that the VNC viewer nomachine is being constantly interrupted, you’re lucky if you get a full 5 minutes of time connected to the viewer before it times out and sits loading until it reconnects.

i’ve confirmed this by running a ping scan on the pwnbox instance at the ip address of the target machine… it suddenly stops responding then when it starts responding again so does the machine…

this is wild its basically impossible to do any of the tasks and its frustrating because you’re already knee deep…

edit: this occurs whether you access the target (via nomachine) from a pwnbox instance or from your own vm connected via ovpn. the problem seems to be entirely with the target machine.

also the login on the target machine after connecting via nomachine and attempting to login using the login GUI seems to intermittently reject the valid credentials provided… it connects to nomachine fine with the same credentials but the actual login to that machine is constantly failing… its maybe worked 3 times for me out of like 40 retries… dunno why it is or isnt working but that is also quite aggravating.

2

I had very similar issues with that course. I tried changing VPN keys from UDP to TCP. It still had inconsistencies, but I was able to complete the course. Also, if my memory serves me well, I was able to complete parts of the module without having to use NoMachine; the answers can be found analyzing the pcap.

It would help if you could specify the exact section in the module.

3

fixed original post to add the sections affected, but its the only two sections that require the nomachine tasks…

4

So I just tried logging in with the credentials supplied and I continuously get timed out. I attempted via the pwnbox as I don’t have nomachine installed and I really don’t feel like configuring everything again because I never use it.

If you haven’t already, certainly contact them via the helpbot on the bottom right of an academy page.

5

thx i didnt realize there was a helpbot, yeah you dont need to go thru the trouble of installing nomachine on a local VM the same results happen regardless something is wrong with the subnet or the machines associated with this lab.

edit: upon revisiting the module, it appears that the connection app has been changed from nomachine to xfreerdp and the connection is much more stable.