• Linux Penetration Testing Commands
  • Linux Network Commands
  • System Information Commands
    • Redhat / CentOS / RPM Based Distros
    • YUM Commands
    • Debian / Ubuntu / .deb Based Distros
  • Linux User Management
  • Linux Decompression Commands
  • Linux Compression Commands
  • Linux File Commands
  • Samba Commands
  • Breaking Out of Limited Shells
  • Misc Commands
  • Linux File System Permissions
  • Linux File System
  • Linux Interesting Files / Dir’s

A collection of hopefully useful Linux Commands for pen testers, this is not a complete list but a collection of commonly used commands + syntax as a sort of “cheatsheet”, this content will be constantly updated as I discover new awesomeness.

Linux Penetration Testing Commands

The commands listed below are designed for local enumeration, typical commands a penetration tester would use during post exploitation or when performing command injection etc. See our pen test cheat sheet for an in depth list of pen testing tool commands and example usage.

Linux Network Commands

Command	Description
netstat -tulpn	Show Linux network ports with process ID's (PIDs)
watch ss -stplu	Watch TCP, UDP open ports in real time with socket summary.
lsof -i	Show established connections.
macchanger -m MACADDR INTR	Change MAC address on KALI Linux.
ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.1/24	Set IP address in Linux.
ifconfig eth0:1 192.168.2.3/24	Add IP address to existing network interface in Linux.
ifconfig eth0 hw ether MACADDR	Change MAC address in Linux using ifconfig.
ifconfig eth0 mtu 1500	Change MTU size Linux using ifconfig, change 1500 to your desired MTU.
dig -x 192.168.1.1	Dig reverse lookup on an IP address.
host 192.168.1.1	Reverse lookup on an IP address, in case dig is not installed.
dig @192.168.2.2 domain.com -t AXFR	Perform a DNS zone transfer using dig.
host -l domain.com nameserver	Perform a DNS zone transfer using host.
nbtstat -A x.x.x.x	Get hostname for IP address.
ip addr add 192.168.2.22/24 dev eth0	Adds a hidden IP address to Linux, does not show up when performing an ifconfig.
tcpkill -9 host google.com	Blocks access to google.com from the host machine.
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward	Enables IP forwarding, turns Linux box into a router - handy for routing traffic through a box.
echo "8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf	Use Google DNS.

System Information Commands

Useful for local enumeration.

Command	Description
whoami	Shows currently logged in user on Linux.
id	Shows currently logged in user and groups for the user.
last	Shows last logged in users.
mount	Show mounted drives.
df -h	Shows disk usage in human readable output.
echo "user:passwd" | chpasswd	Reset password in one line.
getent passwd	List users on Linux.
strings /usr/local/bin/blah	Shows contents of none text files, e.g. whats in a binary.
uname -ar	Shows running kernel version.
PATH=$PATH:/my/new-path	Add a new PATH, handy for local FS manipulation.
history	Show bash history, commands the user has entered previously.

Redhat / CentOS / RPM Based Distros

Command	Description
cat /etc/redhat-release	Shows Redhat / CentOS version number.
rpm -qa	List all installed RPM's on an RPM based Linux distro.
rpm -q --changelog openvpn	Check installed RPM is patched against CVE, grep the output for CVE.

YUM Commands

Package manager used by RPM based systems, you can pull some usefull information about installed packages and or install additional tools.

Command	Description
yum update	Update all RPM packages with YUM, also shows whats out of date.
yum update httpd	Update individual packages, in this example HTTPD (Apache).
yum install package	Install a package using YUM.
yum --exclude=package kernel* update	Exclude a package from being updates with YUM.
yum remove package	Remove package with YUM.
yum erase package	Remove package with YUM.
yum list package	Lists info about yum package.
yum provides httpd	What a packages does, e.g Apache HTTPD Server.
yum info httpd	Shows package info, architecture, version etc.
yum localinstall blah.rpm	Use YUM to install local RPM, settles deps from repo.
yum deplist package	Shows deps for a package.
yum list installed | more	List all installed packages.
yum grouplist | more	Show all YUM groups.
yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'	Install YUM group.

Debian / Ubuntu / .deb Based Distros

Command	Description
cat /etc/debian_version	Shows Debian version number.
cat /etc/*-release	Shows Ubuntu version number.
dpkg -l	List all installed packages on Debian / .deb based Linux distro.

Linux User Management

Command	Description
useradd new-user	Creates a new Linux user.
passwd username	Reset Linux user password, enter just passwd if you are root.
deluser username	Remove a Linux user.

Linux Decompression Commands

How to extract various archives (tar, zip, gzip, bzip2 etc) on Linux and some other tricks for searching inside of archives etc.

Command	Description
unzip archive.zip	Extracts zip file on Linux.
zipgrep *.txt archive.zip	Search inside a .zip archive.
tar xf archive.tar	Extract tar file Linux.
tar xvzf archive.tar.gz	Extract a tar.gz file Linux.
tar xjf archive.tar.bz2	Extract a tar.bz2 file Linux.
tar ztvf file.tar.gz | grep blah	Search inside a tar.gz file.
gzip -d archive.gz	Extract a gzip file Linux.
zcat archive.gz	Read a gz file Linux without decompressing.
zless archive.gz	Same function as the less command for .gz archives.
zgrep 'blah' /var/log/maillog*.gz	Search inside .gz archives on Linux, search inside of compressed log files.
vim file.txt.gz	Use vim to read .txt.gz files (my personal favorite).
upx -9 -o output.exe input.exe	UPX compress .exe file Linux.

Linux Compression Commands

Command	Description
zip -r file.zip /dir/*	Creates a .zip file on Linux.
tar cf archive.tar files	Creates a tar file on Linux.
tar czf archive.tar.gz files	Creates a tar.gz file on Linux.
tar cjf archive.tar.bz2 files	Creates a tar.bz2 file on Linux.
gzip file	Creates a file.gz file on Linux.

Linux File Commands

Command	Description
df -h blah	Display size of file / dir Linux.
diff file1 file2	Compare / Show differences between two files on Linux.
md5sum file	Generate MD5SUM Linux.
md5sum -c blah.iso.md5	Check file against MD5SUM on Linux, assuming both file and .md5 are in the same dir.
file blah	Find out the type of file on Linux, also displays if file is 32 or 64 bit.
dos2unix	Convert Windows line endings to Unix / Linux.
base64 < input-file > output-file	Base64 encodes input file and outputs a Base64 encoded file called output-file.
base64 -d < input-file > output-file	Base64 decodes input file and outputs a Base64 decoded file called output-file.
touch -r ref-file new-file	Creates a new file using the timestamp data from the reference file, drop the -r to simply create a file.
rm -rf	Remove files and directories without prompting for confirmation.

Samba Commands

Connect to a Samba share from Linux.

$ smbmount //server/share /mnt/win -o user=username,password=password1
$ smbclient -U user \\\\server\\share
$ mount -t cifs -o username=user,password=password //x.x.x.x/share /mnt/share

Breaking Out of Limited Shells

Credit to G0tmi1k for these (or wherever he stole them from!).

The Python trick:

python -c 'import pty;pty.spawn("/bin/bash")'

echo os.system('/bin/bash')

/bin/sh -i

Misc Commands

Command	Description
init 6	Reboot Linux from the command line.
gcc -o output.c input.c	Compile C code.
gcc -m32 -o output.c input.c	Cross compile C code, compile 32 bit binary on 64 bit Linux.
unset HISTORYFILE	Disable bash history logging.
rdesktop X.X.X.X	Connect to RDP server from Linux.
kill -9 $$	Kill current session.
chown user:group blah	Change owner of file or dir.
chown -R user:group blah	Change owner of file or dir and all underlying files / dirs - recersive chown.
chmod 600 file	Change file / dir permissions, see [Linux File System Permissons](#linux-file-system-permissions) for details.

Clear bash history:

      $ ssh user@X.X.X.X | cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history
    

Linux File System Permissions

Value	Meaning
777	rwxrwxrwx No restriction, global WRX any user can do anything.
755	rwxr-xr-x Owner has full access, others can read and execute the file.
700	rwx------ Owner has full access, no one else has access.
666	rw-rw-rw- All users can read and write but not execute.
644	rw-r--r-- Owner can read and write, everyone else can read.
600	rw------- Owner can read and write, everyone else has no access.

Linux File System

Directory	Description
/	/ also know as "slash" or the root.
/bin	Common programs, shared by the system, the system administrator and the users.
/boot	Boot files, boot loader (grub), kernels, vmlinuz
/dev	Contains references to system devices, files with special properties.
/etc	Important system config files.
/home	Home directories for system users.
/lib	Library files, includes files for all kinds of programs needed by the system and the users.
/lost+found	Files that were saved during failures are here.
/mnt	Standard mount point for external file systems.
/media	Mount point for external file systems (on some distros).
/net	Standard mount point for entire remote file systems - nfs.
/opt	Typically contains extra and third party software.
/proc	A virtual file system containing information about system resources.
/root	root users home dir.
/sbin	Programs for use by the system and the system administrator.
/tmp	Temporary space for use by the system, cleaned upon reboot.
/usr	Programs, libraries, documentation etc. for all user-related programs.
/var	Storage for all variable files and temporary files created by users, such as log files, mail queue, print spooler. Web servers, Databases etc.

Linux Interesting Files / Dir’s

Places that are worth a look if you are attempting to privilege escalate / perform post exploitation.

Directory	Description
/etc/passwd	Contains local Linux users.
/etc/shadow	Contains local account password hashes.
/etc/group	Contains local account groups.
/etc/init.d/	Contains service init script - worth a look to see whats installed.
/etc/hostname	System hostname.
/etc/network/interfaces	Network interfaces.
/etc/resolv.conf	System DNS servers.
/etc/profile	System environment variables.
~/.ssh/	SSH keys.
~/.bash_history	Users bash history log.
/var/log/	Linux system log files are typically stored here.
/var/adm/	UNIX system log files are typically stored here.
/var/log/apache2/access.log /var/log/httpd/access.log	Apache access log file typical path.
/etc/fstab	File system mounts.