Linux CLI - Shells Bells | Advent of Cyber 2025 - Day 1
This guide contains the answer and steps necessary to get to them for the Linux CLI - Shells Bells room.
Table of contents
Linux CLI
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Which CLI command would you use to list a directory?
The answer to this question can be found in the text.
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ls -
Complete on machine: Identify the flag inside of the McSkidy's guide.
After listing the directory, we can see a readme file. Lets read it using:
cat README.txt.This tells us there is a hidden guide in the guides folder. We navigate into it and look for any files using:
cmdcd Guides ls -laHere we find the file '.guide.txt' which will hold the first flag. Opening it (
cat .guide.txt) will automatically answer the question in Tryhackme.
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THM{learning-linux-cli} -
Which command helped you filter the logs for failed logins?
The answer to this question can be found in the text.
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grep -
Complete on machine: Identify the flag inside the Eggstrike script.
As stated in the text we look for failed login attempts in the 'auth' log.
cmdgrep "Failed password" auth.logThis gives us a few failed attempts for user 'socmas'. Next we will look into its home directory for any suspicious files.
cmdfind /home/socmas/ -name *eggs* cat /home/socmas/2025/eggstrike.shHere we see a possibly malicious script file. Opening it reveals the next flag.

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THM{sir-carrotbane-attacks} -
Which command would you run to switch to the root user?
The answer to this question can be found in the text.
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sudo su -
Finally, what flag did Sir Carrotbane leave in the root bash history?
To view the bash history of the roort user, we must first switch to the root user using
sudo su. Now we can usehistoryto view the used bash commands.
Indeed we find the flag left behind for us.
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THM{until-we-meet-again} -
For those who consider themself intermediate and want another challenge, check McSkidy's hidden note in/home/mcskidy/Documents/to get access to the key forSide Quest 1!
Navigating to '/home/mcskidy/Documents/' we find a file called 'read-me-please.txt'. This files contains some information and several clues needed for us to find the key for the first sidequest of 2025. This will be further investigated in [Advent of Cyber '25 Side Quest](https://github.com/Kevinovitz/TryHackMe_Writeups/blob/main/ adventofcyber25sidequest/adventofcyber25sidequest.md)
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