What should I do first?

I just joined minutes ago. Should I just connect to the free EU machine and poke around? How do I progress/learn? Is there a list of challenges on the machine or am I supposed to know that before connecting?

I would check the machine list and aim for some easy machines to make yourself familiar with the tooling needed.

Free VPN is OK. Maybe later paid subscription. Or if you can spare a bit paid VPN, just to support the platform :slight_smile:

watch ippsec and derek rook videos on youtube

The challenges are the same for all the boxes under the "machines’ section.

Get uesr and root of the machines. Which ever way you can do it. Most are set up to have a direct path and then a minor path or two to get you root.

I highly recommend taking a look maybe at nibbles to be your first box. Once you wrap your head around it, its pretty straight forward.

Dirbuster
CeWL

and understanding how a shells in linux work should help you get this one in the bag.

Thank you very much for the polite, concise replies!