clone

Welcome to make-git-better CTF 🚩

• Notes for beginners
  • 🧱 CTF structure
  • The level browser
  • 🤔 Unsure what to do?
• ▶ I am ready to play
  • Connect to the game server
  • Clone the repository
• 🧩 Hints

Notes for beginners

🧱 CTF structure

This CTF, like most other CTFs, is separated into levels. You start at the “clone” level (where you are right now), and try to finish it. When you’ll finish a level, you will get some information about how to start the next one!

The pages on this website for the different levels can be accessed via the level graph browser:

The level browser

• The current level is marked with a 📍. For example, you are now in the 📍 clone level.
• Click on a level to go to its page.
• You can zoom in and out and drag the browser around to take a look, as well.

Try it out!

Each page will contain information about that stage, and also some hints. All levels in this game have a page on this website, and they are all linked to from the level graph browser.

🤔 Unsure what to do?

There are several things you can try when you are unsure how to continue:

• First, if you know a command, but don’t know how to use it, try the manual (man page) by entering man <command> or git help <command>. E.g. if you want to learn more about the git commit command, type: git help commit. The man command also has a manual, try it. Press q to quit the man command.
• Second, if there is no man page, the command might be a shell built-in. In that case use the help <X> command. E.g. help cd
• Also, your favorite search-engine is your friend. Learn how to use it! 🔍
• For each stage, there are hints. You can use the hints if you want. See the hints for this level.
• If you are still stuck, you can reach out to me and I’ll try my best to help you out.

▶ I am ready to play

This is the first level of the challenge. The goal of this level is for you to log into the game server using SSH and clone the game repository.

Connect to the game server

The host to which you need to connect is ctf.mrnice.dev, on port 12345. The username is player and the password is player. So:

ssh player@ctf.mrnice.dev -p 12345

Clone the repository

You need to clone a repository using ssh, as well. The server is localhost, the user is gamemaster, and the repository’s path on the server is ~/ctf-repo. So that means you need to run the following command:

git clone gamemaster@localhost:~/ctf-repo

Once you’ve done this, run

cd ctf-repo

to change the working directory to the cloned repository. You should see some changes in your shell (like master on the left side). It should look something like this:

Finally, read the README.md file to see what you need to do to get to the next level: start-here.

Good luck!

🧩 Hints

Click on hints to reveal them.

Attribution¹