** The basics of hacking ii: vax's **

Welcome to the basics of hacking ii: vax'sand 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 way

the 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

every- thing 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 [end] 1984

much you can do (except develope software) without them. Next to come: the

basics of hacking iii: data general