Bandit Level 2 To 3

03 Mar 2022 - mike

Level 2 -> 3

Game Instructions

The password for the next level is stored in a file called spaces in this filename located in the home directory

First, let’s login using the previous password and the next login of bandit2:

ssh -p 2220 bandit2@bandit.labs.overthewire.org
password: CV1DtqXWVFXTvM2F0k09SHz0YwRINYA9

So this one is fairly simple. You just need to understand how spaces " " work on the command line. If you just simply run cat spaces in this filename, you’ll get This

cat: spaces: No such file or directory
cat: in: No such file or directory
cat: this: No such file or directory
cat: filename: No such file or directory

This is because separating by spaces will always look for another file. Basically you’re asking cat to look for 4 different files. So we need to escape the spaces.

There are two options here:

We can escape each space cat spaces\ in\ this\ filename… escaping each space OR;
We can encapsulate the entire string in " " cat "spaces in this filename"

Either one will make sure that cat treats the whole string as one file name… giving you the next password in the series:

UmHadQclWmgdLOKQ3YNgjWxGoRMb5luK

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