🕹️ My First Steps in OverTheWire Bandit (Levels 0–5) 🎮

Hey friends 👋,

Today I started the OverTheWire Bandit challenges — a playground where you learn real Linux + security skills by solving tiny puzzles.

It felt like a game where each level teaches you one new “hacker move.” Here’s my journey from Level 0 to Level 4, explained like I’d tell a friend.

---

🔑 Level 0 — Meeting SSH for the First Time

At first, I had no idea what SSH was. After running man ssh, I learned:

SSH (Secure Shell) lets you control another computer securely from far away.

To connect to Bandit, I used:

ssh -p 2220 [e-mail]
# password: bandit0

This dropped me into another computer like stepping into a remote terminal. Boom 🎉, Level 0 cleared.

---

📖 Level 1 — The Dreaded “Dash” File

I logged into bandit1 and ran:

ls

It showed a file, but its name started with a dash (-). That’s tricky, because most commands treat anything starting with - as an option.

For example, cat -n means “cat with line numbers.” So if you just type cat -, the command thinks it’s a flag, not a filename.

💡 Solution: explicitly tell Linux “this is a file in the current directory”:

cat ./-

That way, ./ points to this directory and avoids confusion.

🎉 Password revealed ✅.

---

📝 Level 2 — Spaces in Filenames (oof)

This one made me suffer. The file literally had spaces in its name:

--spaces in this filename--

Spaces confuse the shell, because it thinks each word is a separate argument. I tried a bunch of tricks, but what worked was:

cat -- "--spaces in this filename--"

Here’s why it works:

• -- tells the command: stop parsing options, everything after this is just a filename.
• Quoting the name "..." ensures spaces are treated as part of one filename, not multiple.

Lesson learned: avoid spaces in filenames if you can. Use - or _ instead.

---

👀 Level 3 — Hidden, But Not Really

At first glance, the folder looked empty:

ls

But I knew better. Linux hides files starting with a dot (.). To see them, you need:

ls -a

And boom, I spotted a sneaky file:

...Hiding-From-You

I opened it with:

cat "...Hiding-From-You"

and there was the password 🎉.

⚡ Quick tip:

• ls → shows only normal files.
• ls -a → shows all files, including hidden ones.

---

🗂️ Level 4 — Too Many Files, Which One?

Inside inhere/, I found multiple files. Instead of opening each one, I asked Linux:

file -- ./*

This command checks every file and tells you what type it is (text, binary, etc.).

Breakdown:

• file → tells the type of a file.
• -- → again, stop treating things as options.
• ./* → means “all files in the current folder.”

One of them was marked as plain text. I cat’d it and got the password 🚀.

---

🎯 Quick Recap (Levels 0–4)

• SSH → secure remote access (ssh -p 2220 user@host).
• Files starting with - → use ./- or --.
• Filenames with spaces → wrap in quotes, use --.
• Hidden files → ls -a (or -A).
• Too many files? → file -- ./* finds the right one.

---

🏁 Wrapping Up

These first few levels taught me something super important: it’s not about memorising commands, it’s about learning how the shell thinks.

Every tricky filename, every hidden file, every “why won’t this work?!” moment is preparing me to think like both a hacker and a problem solver.

This is just the beginning — and I can already see how much fun this journey will be.

Can’t wait to dive into the next levels and share what I learn! 🚀

“Stay curious, keep exploring, and remember: with great power comes great responsibility.” 🕷️

— Sriram Bharath (Gh0stSh3ll) 👻