Starting Tutorial.

Hello!
First of all, please, don’t flood this with comments like “I have this issue too!! please help!!” please, ONLY helping comments.
Ok so, I working on VMware, using kali linux 2020, and root profile (no need sudo).

When I use this command-
ports=$(nmap -p- --min-rate=1000 -T4 10.10.10.27 | grep [1] | cut -d ‘/’ -f 1 | tr ‘\n’ ‘,’ | sed s/,$//)

I can’t do a thing, nothing is processing and the teminal stuck, doing nothing and i can’t execute commands.

So I just went a typed the next command after I close the first teminal because it looked like it is doing nothing.
I wrote:
nmap -sC -sV -p$ports 10.10.10.27

(I don’t know if i needed to wrote IP instead of 10.10.10.27, anyway I am not sure how to get my IP :neutral: )

And then the terminal wrote me:
Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-10-20 10:13 EDT
Error #487: Your port specifications are illegal. Example of proper form: “-100,200-1024,T:3000-4000,U:60000-”
QUITTING!

So I tried something else and I wrote:
nmap -sC -sV -p- 10.10.10.27

And I finally got something familier to the example, only 1 problem, no ports open:
Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-10-20 10:18 EDT
Stats: 0:00:05 elapsed; 0 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing SYN Stealth Scan
SYN Stealth Scan Timing: About 1.90% done; ETC: 10:22 (0:04:19 remaining)
Nmap scan report for 10.10.10.27
Host is up (0.00057s latency).
All 65535 scanned ports on 10.10.10.27 are filtered

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at Nmap OS/Service Fingerprint and Correction Submission Page .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 152.24 seconds

Please help me I don’t know what to do :frowning:


  1. 0-9 ↩︎

@Eladtopaz said:

Hello!
First of all, please, don’t flood this with comments like “I have this issue too!! please help!!” please, ONLY helping comments.

I have no idea if my comment will help or not, but I will try anyway. . . .

Ok so, I working on VMware, using kali linux 2020, and root profile (no need sudo).

When I use this command-
ports=$(nmap -p- --min-rate=1000 -T4 10.10.10.27 | grep [1] | cut -d ‘/’ -f 1 | tr ‘\n’ ‘,’ | sed s/,$//)

As a general suggestion, I’d avoid running commands before you get an idea what it is trying to do. It makes it very hard to troubleshoot.

In this case, you are trying to create an environment variable (ports) based on the output of a quick nmap scan. If nmap fails for any reason this will hang, but you cant work out what the problem is because the problem is hidden from you.

So I just went a typed the next command after I close the first teminal because it looked like it is doing nothing.
I wrote:
nmap -sC -sV -p$ports 10.10.10.27

This is not how nmap works.

It only works if you’ve set the environment variable in the previous command.

There are a lot of discussions here about this “cool script” version of nmap. Personally I think it is a mistake.

And then the terminal wrote me:
Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-10-20 10:13 EDT
Error #487: Your port specifications are illegal. Example of proper form: “-100,200-1024,T:3000-4000,U:60000-”
QUITTING!

It means $ports isn’t a number.

So I tried something else and I wrote:
nmap -sC -sV -p- 10.10.10.27

This is the correct way to use nmap.

You can also try:

nmap -sC -sV -p- -vvvvvvvv 10.10.10.27 and get more visual feedback as to what is happening.

the -p switch specifies ports.

And I finally got something familier to the example, only 1 problem, no ports open:
Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-10-20 10:18 EDT
Stats: 0:00:05 elapsed; 0 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing SYN Stealth Scan
SYN Stealth Scan Timing: About 1.90% done; ETC: 10:22 (0:04:19 remaining)
Nmap scan report for 10.10.10.27
Host is up (0.00057s latency).
All 65535 scanned ports on 10.10.10.27 are filtered

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at Nmap OS/Service Fingerprint and Correction Submission Page .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 152.24 seconds

Please help me I don’t know what to do :frowning:

The good news is that this explains why the initial part of your script failed. It didn’get a response it could find with grep.

So, I would check:

  1. are you connected to the starting point VPN?
  2. do you need to start the server or anything?
  3. is the server broken? I notice on the Starting Point page there are 4 votes to reset it, which implies its fallen over.

  1. 0-9 ↩︎

and about two seconds after I posted that it seems someone made the 5th vote and the lab has reset.

I’d suggest trying again.

I thought I had the same problem. For me, it’s just an issue of the amount of time it takes to complete.

Type your comment> @TazWake said:

So, I would check:

  1. are you connected to the starting point VPN?
  2. do you need to start the server or anything?
  3. is the server broken? I notice on the Starting Point page there are 4 votes to reset it, which implies its fallen over.

So I actually removed the kali linux itself and started all over again and I saw that it is request that VPN in the start. So This was the first thing I did, but I don’t know if it worked. and if it work, what to do next, open a new terminal? close this one? because I can’t write commands on this terminal.

Wed Oct 21 10:28:14 2020 Initialization Sequence Completed

This line is the last line the code said after I ran the VPN. So again, I can’t write in this terminal anything, I don’t sure if it is supposed to be like this.

Type your comment> @Eladtopaz said:

(Quote)
This line is the last line the code said after I ran the VPN. So again, I can’t write in this terminal anything, I don’t sure if it is supposed to be like this.

Yea the process is running in that terminal so you can’t use it for anything else

i have problem pls help me:Thu Oct 22 09:41:54 2020 OpenVPN 2.4.6 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [EPOLL] [PKCS11] [MH/PKTINFO] [AEAD] built on Jul 30 2018
Thu Oct 22 09:41:54 2020 library versions: OpenSSL 1.1.1g 21 Apr 2020, LZO 2.10
Thu Oct 22 09:41:54 2020 Outgoing Control Channel Authentication: Using 256 bit message hash ‘SHA256’ for HMAC authentication
Thu Oct 22 09:41:54 2020 Incoming Control Channel Authentication: Using 256 bit message hash ‘SHA256’ for HMAC authentication
Thu Oct 22 09:41:55 2020 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]5.44.235.95:1337
Thu Oct 22 09:41:55 2020 Socket Buffers: R=[212992->212992] S=[212992->212992]
Thu Oct 22 09:41:55 2020 UDP link local: (not bound)
Thu Oct 22 09:41:55 2020 UDP link remote: [AF_INET]5.44.235.95:1337
Thu Oct 22 09:41:56 2020 TLS: Initial packet from [AF_INET]5.44.235.95:1337, sid=caecdf44 cf4383f1
Thu Oct 22 09:42:55 2020 TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)
Thu Oct 22 09:42:55 2020 TLS Error: TLS handshake failed

It is difficult for anyone on the forums to help with this - the main thing I’d suggest is raising a JIRA ticket (see HTB Support on JIRA - News - Hack The Box :: Forums) so HTB support can help you.