Well that was super annoying. I’ve rooted the box finally. Getting a shell was a wee bit tricky and with some suggestions from others helped me get the right command - this should be the hard part though.
Priv Esc according to those who have done it is supposedly super easy. It wasn’t so for me. Despite having done the same exploit as those who have done it (via the writeup on github (need root.txt as password) - I can see I have used the exact same exploit as them however for whatever reason it did not work for me and I have no idea why.
So I spent a painfully long time trying to figure out where I was going wrong with increasingly complicated ways of trying to exploit.
Anyway, got system in the end using a different exploit - so to answer @halfluke - yes there’s a different way to exploit it. It’s harder to find but it worked for me in the end. Phew. From writeup’s others have done, it is easy. I followed the same path, but didn’t work for me.
I’ll have to reset box and see if I can do it again with that easy exploit and see where I went wrong. Good to learn.
Good box to learn about getting an initial foothold using something that many tend to overlook (even I’m guilty of this).