OK, this was my first box after playing around on the retired boxes for a few days. It took me approx 4 days (on and off) to get both user and root. So much was learnt and I’m not sure how much of it I would have done without the hints from you folk, so thank you.
I will say that some people need to be careful just how much of a ‘hint’ they offer publicly. Some were a little too close to being a spoiler.
However, with that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the learning curve and look forward to many more sleepless nights.