Course

In this challenge, you start by logging in with the username and password "pentesterlab". The root user has left a file named backup.tbz in the /var/tmp directory. Unlike the /tmp directory, /var/tmp does not get cleaned up after each reboot, making it a common place for administrators to leave files temporarily. The file extension .tbz indicates that it is a tar archive compressed using bzip2.

To retrieve the key, you need to extract the contents of the backup.tbz file. Use the tar command with the -j flag to specify bzip2 compression, -x to extract, -v for verbose mode, and -f followed by the filename. This will extract the file into the current directory, creating a path like /var/tmp/home/victim. The key to the challenge is located in the secrets.txt file within this directory. Once you open secrets.txt, you will find the key needed to complete the exercise.