SuperHack/SuperHack CD.bin/Hack/MISC/INTRHAC3.ZIP/INTRHAC3.TXT

Text File | 1991-06-09 | 7.3 KB | 113 lines

Title:   Introduction To Hacking - Part #3
Date:    4/29/88
Time:    11:18 am



** The Basics Of Hacking II: Vax's  **
** Unix is a trademark of bell labs **
** (and you know what *that* means) **

Welcome to the Basics Of Hacking II: Vax's and Unix.

   In this article, we discuss the unix system that runs on the various
vax systems.  If you are on another unix-type system, some commands may
differ, but since it is licenced to bell, they can't make many changes.
Hacking onto a unix system is very difficult, and in this case, we advise
having an inside source, if possible. The reason it is difficult to hack a
vax is this:  many vax, after you get a carrier from them, respond=> login:
they give you no chance to see what the login name format is.  Most commonly
used are single words, under 8 digits, usually the person's name.  There is a
way around this: most vax have an acct. Called 'suggest' for people to use to
make a suggestion to the system root terminal.  This is usually watched by
the system operator, but at late  he is probably at home sleeping or screwing
someone's brains out. So we can write a program to send at the vax this type
of a message: a screen freeze (cntrl-s), screen clear (system dependant),
about 255 garbage characters, and then a command to create a login acct.,
After which you clear the screen again, then un- freeze the terminal.  What
this does: when the terminal is frozen, it keeps a buffer of what is sent.
Well, the buffer is about 127 characters long. So you overflow it with trash,
and then you send a command line to create an acct. (System dependant).
After this you clear the buffer and screen again, then unfreeze the terminal.
This is a bad way to do it, and it is much nicer if you just send a command
to the terminal to shut the system down, or whatever you are after... There
is always, *always* an acct. Called root, the most powerful acct. To be on,
since it has all of the system files on it.  If you hack your way onto this
one, then everything is easy from here on... On the unix system, the abort
key is the cntrl-d key.  Watch how many times you hit this, since it is also
a way to log off the system! A little about unix architechture: the root
directory, called root, is where the system resides.  After this come a few
'sub' root directories, usually to group things (stats here, priv stuff here,
the user log here...). Under this comes the superuser (the operator of the
system), and then finally the normal users.  In the unix 'shell' everything
is treated the same. By this we mean:  you can access a  program the same
way you access a user directory, and so on.  The wa}Mthe unix system was
written, everything, users included, are just programs belonging to the root
directory.  Those of you who hacked onto the root, smile, since you can screw
everything... The main level (exec level) prompt on the unix system is the $,
and if you are on the root, you have a # (super-user prompt). Ok, a few
basics for the system... To see where you are, and what paths are active in
reguards to your user account, then type => pwd this shows  your acct.
Seperated by a slash with another pathname (acct.), Possibly many times. To
connect through to another path, or many paths, you would type: you=>path1/
path2/path3 and then you are connected all the way from path1 to path3. You
can run the programs on all the paths you are connected to.  If it does not
allow you to connect to a path,  then you have insufficient privs, or the
path is closed and archived onto tape.  You can run programs this way also:
you=>path1/path2/path3/program-name unix treats everything as a program, and
thus there a few commands to learn... To see what you have access to in the
end path, type=>  ls for list.  This show the programs you can run.  You can
connect to the root directory and run it's  programs with=> /root by the way,
most unix systems have their log file on the root, so you can set up a watch
on the file, waiting for people to log in and snatch their password as it
passes thru the file. To connect to a directory, use the command:  => cd
pathname this allows you to do what you want with that directory.  You may be
asked for a  password, but this is a good way of finding other user names to
hack onto.   The wildcard character in unix, if you want to search down a
path for a game or such, is the *. => Ls /* should show you what you can
access. The file types are the same as they are on a dec, so refer to that
section when examining file.  To see what is in a file, use the => pr
filename command, for print file.   We advise playing with pathnames to get
the hang of the concept.  There is on-line help available on most systems
with a 'help' or a '?'. We advise you look thru the help files and pay
attention to anything they give you on pathnames, or the commands for the
system.   You can, as a user, create or destroy directories on the tree
beneath you. This means that root can kill everything but root, and you can
kill any that are below you.  These are the=> mkdir pathname => rmdir
pathname  commands.   Once again, you are not alone on the system...  Type=>
who to see what other users are logged in to the system at the time.  If you
want to talk to them=>  write username will allow you to chat at the same
time, without having to worry about the parser.  To send mail to a user, say
=> mail and enter the mail sub-system. To send a message to all the users on
the system, say => wall which stands for 'write all' by the way, on a few
systems, all you have to do is hit the <return> key to end the message, but
on others you must hit the cntrl-d key. To send a single message to a user,
say => write username this is very handy again!  If you send the sequence of
characters discussed at the very beginning of this article, you can have the
super-user terminal do tricks for you again. Privs: if you want super-user
privs, you can either log in as root, or edit your acct. So it can say => su
this now gives you the # prompt, and allows you to completely by-pass the
protection.  The wonderful security conscious developers at bell made it very
difficult to do much without  privs, but once you have them, there is
absolutely nothing stopping you from doing anything you want to. To bring
down a unix system: => chdir /bin => rm * this wipes out the pathname bin,
where all the system maintenance files are. Or try: => r -r this recursively
removes everything  from the system except the remove command itself. Or try:
=> kill -1,1 => sync this wipes out the system devices from operation.   When
you are finally sick and tired from hacking on the vax systems, just hit your
cntrl-d and repeat key, and you will eventually be logged out. The reason
this file seems to be very sketchy is the fact that bell has 7 licenced
versions of unix out in the public domain, and these commands are those
common to all of them.  We recommend you hack onto the root or bin directory,
since they have the highest levels of privs, and there is really not much you
can do (except develope software) without them. Next to come: the basics of
hacking iii: data general

This article written by: the Knights of Shadow
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