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Hack The Box Platform
العربيةPortuguês do BrasilEnglishFrançaisΕλληνικάहिंदी日本語한국어Español繁體中文;
English
Hack The Box Platform
العربيةPortuguês do BrasilEnglishFrançaisΕλληνικάहिंदी日本語한국어Español繁體中文;
English

Table of contents

Accessing Pwnbox
Initializing Pwnbox
Terminating Active Instances
Passwords and Spectators
Using Pwnbox
Tips and Tricks
Terminating Pwnbox
Pwnbox Limitations
All Collections

HTB Labs - Community Platform

Getting Started

Introduction to Pwnbox
Introduction to Pwnbox

What is Pwnbox? How does it work? Read about it here.

Written by Ryan Gordon
Updated over a week ago
Table of contents

Accessing Pwnbox
Initializing Pwnbox
Terminating Active Instances
Passwords and Spectators
Using Pwnbox
Tips and Tricks
Terminating Pwnbox
Pwnbox Limitations

Pwnbox is a customized, online Parrot Security Linux distribution with many
hacking tools pre-installed. You can use it to play in our labs without
installing a local VM serving the same purpose.



If you're wondering about having the right tool, don't worry! Our custom-made
parrot security distro comes equipped with a plethora of tools of the trade.
Every month we issue an update to make sure it's fully up-to-date with
everything you'll need.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ACCESSING PWNBOX

You can access the Pwnbox controls by clicking on the Connection Settings button
to the right of your profile picture, at the top right of the page you're on.



This menu is accessible from any page to make navigation easier and provide you
with faster access to the tools you need to further your development.





After you land on the Pwnbox menu, you will see the Hours Left counter at the
top, followed by the connection settings below. The counter at the top refers to
how many available hours of Pwnbox you have left. After you've finished using
any Pwnbox instance, it is vital that you terminate it to save this time for
later use.


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INITIALIZING PWNBOX

You can proceed with selecting a Pwnbox Location based on the lowest latency
reported for each of them. Afterward, you can proceed with selecting the VPN
Access and the VPN Server fields that would benefit you the most in terms of
latency.



It's now easier than ever to switch VPN servers mid-action on the same menu, so
if you ever run into any connection problems further down the line, you can use
the same page to switch to a different server.





If you want to learn more about these categories, we have an article explaining
Lab Access in greater depth.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click the button below to learn more about Lab Access:



Introduction to Lab Access

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





After selecting your preferred servers, you can click the Start Pwnbox button to
start the initialization process. After this is complete, you will be presented
with a small preview of what is happening on the desktop of the Pwnbox you've
spawned, together with the three available interactions:

 * Open Desktop

Which will open a VNC connection through HTTPS to the box, similar to TeamViewer
or other GUI-based remote connections.

 * Terminate

Which will terminate the current Pwnbox instance. It would be best if you always
used this after you've finished using your VM as it will save you some usage
time for the future.

 * Open SSH Terminal

Which will initialize an SSH connection from your local machine's terminal,
where you will be prompted to accept the remote host's fingerprint and then
enter your generated password.







Once the initialization sequence is complete, you will have a working instance
of Pwnbox. As noted, please make sure you disconnect your VPN from any other
locations before you attempt to initialize a VPN connection to HTB labs from
Pwnbox.




TERMINATING ACTIVE INSTANCES

Please note that you will not be able to spawn Pwnbox if you already have an
instance of a Box running. You must terminate any Box Instances you have and
start Pwnbox before spawning a Box.



If you already have a Box running when you go to spawn Pwnbox, you will be met
with the following:







You can see which Box you have currently running, and consequently terminate it,
by checking the top-left of the website.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


PASSWORDS AND SPECTATORS

During your Pwnbox interaction, you will need to have the randomly generated
user password available to perform sudo actions and connect through SSH.



To access this password for your current instance, you can click on the View
Instance Details drop-down menu right below the Pwnbox stats section.





You can also have Spectators during your Pwnbox interaction. This can be useful
for students or demos you might want to perform in front of a live audience. To
see the shareable Spectator Links, click on the icon next to the Instance
Lifetime section of the Pwnbox menu.





You can also find your sudo credentials on the desktop in the my_credentials.txt
file.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


USING PWNBOX

Once you have everything set up and ready to go, let's assume you want to use
the VNC connection to access the desktop environment of the Pwnbox instance.



Upon clicking the Open Desktop button, you will receive a popup page with a
loading screen as the VNC connection initializes.







You can find your main tools, the PowerShell terminal, and the Parrot terminal
at the top of the screen.





Next to these, you can notice several other shortcuts and places such as your
Applications, Places, and System folders. You have a network monitor display and
your workspace controls on the right, which you can use to switch between
different desktop workspaces.



On the bottom taskbar, you have a few shortcuts. You can edit this menu with
whatever else you prefer to use, but the defaults are Firefox, PyCharm, Postman,
BurpSuite, Metasploit Framework, and VSCodium.



Note that you have a useful clipboard utility at the bottom right. If you want
to copy and paste the output from the instance to your main OS, you can do so by
selecting the text inside the instance you want to copy, copying it, and then
clicking the clipboard icon at the bottom right. You will be able to find the
text you copied inside and can now copy it again outside of the instance and
paste it wherever, externally.





From here, you have to follow the same steps you would when attacking a Box the
usual way! Make sure an instance of the Box you want to attack is spawned by
visiting its page on this link and proceed to attack it relentlessly until it is
conquered.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


TIPS AND TRICKS

You can access your personal data on the ~/Desktop/my_data folder, and you have
a dedicated user_init script for auto-backup.



If you want to copy or download anything from the Pwnbox instance, you can use
SCP or SFTP.



Remember, the 24 hour time allowance for VIP users is reset at the start of the
month, and leftover hours do not port over.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


TERMINATING PWNBOX

As mentioned before, don't forget to terminate your current Pwnbox instance
after you're done interacting with it. To issue a termination, click on the
Terminate button on the Pwnbox menu.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


PWNBOX LIMITATIONS

On the HTB Labs:

 * Free Users have a single two hour session of Pwnbox available for the life of
   their account, as a way to test out it's features. Free users also have
   limited internet access, with only our own target systems and GitHub being
   allowed.

 * VIP users have a limit of 24 hours per month to use their Pwnbox. This limit
   gets renewed with each month that you renew your VIP Subscription

 * VIP+ users have unlimited use of Pwnbox.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Related Articles
Introduction to Lab Access

Introduction to CTFs

Enterprise Lab Access

Introduction to Starting Point

Connecting to Academy VPN

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