OverTheWire: Bandit — Complete Walkthrough & Documentation

Welcome to my OverTheWire: Bandit cybersecurity learning repository.

This repository documents my hands-on progress through the Bandit wargame, including the commands I used, the reasoning behind each solution, Linux concepts learned, mistakes encountered, and important security concepts.

The goal is to build a practical understanding of Linux, command-line tools, networking, authentication, file permissions, automation, and basic security concepts.

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About OverTheWire Bandit

Bandit is a beginner-oriented Linux wargame hosted by OverTheWire. Each level presents a security-related challenge that requires investigation and problem-solving from the command line.

Key Learning Areas

• 🐧 Linux CLI & Navigation

  • "ls", "cd", "pwd", "cat", "cp", "mv", "rm"
  • Hidden files and directory structures
  • File permissions and ownership

• 🔎 Text Processing & Analysis

  • "grep"
  • "sort"
  • "uniq"
  • "strings"
  • "cut"
  • "tr"
  • "file"
  • "xxd"

• 📦 Compression & Archives

  • "gzip"
  • "bzip2"
  • "tar"
  • Hexadecimal dumps
  • Nested compression

• 🌐 Networking

  • TCP connections
  • Port scanning
  • "nc" / Netcat
  • "openssl"
  • SSH
  • Network services

• 🔐 Authentication & Cryptography

  • SSH authentication
  • Private keys
  • Base64
  • ROT13 / Caesar cipher
  • TLS connections

• ⚙️ Linux Security

  • SUID binaries
  • SGID
  • Privilege boundaries
  • Cron jobs
  • Restricted shells
  • Shell escaping

• 📜 Git & Version Control Security

  • Git repositories
  • Commit history
  • Branches
  • Tags
  • Hidden credentials
  • Git hooks

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📂 Repository Structure

Bandit/ │ ├── README.md │ └── Levels/ ├── Level00_01.md ├── Level01_02.md ├── Level02_03.md ├── Level03_04.md ├── Level04_05.md ├── Level05_06.md ├── Level06_07.md ├── Level07_08.md ├── Level08_09.md ├── Level09_10.md ├── Level10_11.md ├── Level11_12.md ├── Level12_13.md ├── ... └── Level33_34.md

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🧪 Documentation Format

1. Objective — What the challenge is asking.
2. Commands Used — Relevant Linux commands and syntax.
3. Reasoning — Why each command was used.
4. Solution — How the challenge was solved.
5. Concept Learned — The underlying Linux/security concept.
6. Mistakes & Lessons

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💻 Environment Setup

The Bandit server can be accessed through SSH.

ssh banditX@bandit.labs.overthewire.org -p 2220

Replace "X" with the appropriate Bandit level.

Example:

ssh bandit11@bandit.labs.overthewire.org -p 2220

Useful Commands

pwd ls ls -la cd cat file find grep sort uniq strings cut tr xxd base64 ssh The exact commands used will vary depending on the challenge.

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🧠 Currently Learning

This repository is helping me build practical foundations in:

• Linux system administration
• Command-line investigation
• File systems
• File permissions
• Authentication
• Networking fundamentals
• Cryptography basics
• Shell scripting
• Process automation
• Git security
• Security-oriented problem solving

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⚠️ Responsible Use

All techniques documented here are performed within the intentionally vulnerable OverTheWire Bandit environment. These techniques should only be applied to systems where we have explicit authorization to test.

📚 Resources

• OverTheWire: https://overthewire.org/
• Bandit: https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/

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👤 About This Repository

This repo will be a technical record of what I investigated and what went wrong, and what I learned from the process.