Hack the Mainframe

EmptyStack Solutions is planning to dump massive amounts of heavy metals into a nearby lake. Use your terminal to hack the mainframe and stop them before it's too late! In this workshop, you'll practice using terminal commands to navigate a file system, read files, and search for data.

Getting Started

1. Create a block02 folder in your coursework directory.
2. Navigate your terminal to the block02 folder.
3. Download the files and folders you'll need for this workshop by running this command:

   git clone https://github.com/FullstackAcademy/hack-the-mainframe.git
   

4. cd hack-the-mainframe to navigate into the folder that you just downloaded.
5. Run pwd to verify that you are in the correct directory. The output should end with /block02/hack-the-mainframe.

Find the restaurant

You know that the engineers at EmptyStack Solutions get dinner together at a local restaurant. You have a device that can scan their employee badges, but you don't remember the name of the restaurant. However, you know that it starts with the word "Fork". You also know that "Alice" and "Bob" are engineers at EmptyStack Solutions. Use your terminal to find the name of the restaurant.

1. cd restaurants to get into the restaurants directory.
2. ls will show you a list of restaurants.
3. Use cd name_of_restaurant to go into a restaurant.
   1. For example, to visit The Big Plate, you would run cd the_big_plate
4. Use ls inside a restaurant to see a list of customers.
5. Use cd .. to go back out.
6. Explore! What is the name of the restaurant you're looking for?
7. Take a screenshot of your terminal once you've found the restaurant.

Tip

If you're ever lost, use pwd and ls to figure out where you are and what's around you.

Important

You will submit all screenshots at the end of the workshop.

Scan employee badges

Great! You've found the restaurant. Now, let's try scanning the EmptyStack employee badges. If you're lucky, someone might have forgotten to encrypt their badge. You're trying to get an ID number that you can use to access their EmptyStack Solutions account.

1. Navigate your terminal into the restaurant you found earlier.
2. Try scanning Alice's badge: cat alice
   If you see XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, then you're on the right track! You'll have to scan someone else's badge, though. Alice is too smart to leave her badge unencrypted.
3. Once you've scanned an unencrypted badge and found an ID number, take a screenshot of your terminal.
4. Write the ID down. You'll need it in the next section.

Tip

cat is short for "concatenate". The command reads the contents of a file and concatenates it to the terminal output.

Tip

You can press Tab to autocomplete a file or directory name. For example, if you type cat a and then press Tab, the terminal will autocomplete the command to cat alice.

Find the password

The ID is a good start, but you'll need a password as well to access the account. Luckily for you, EmptyStack Solutions recently had a massive security breach. All of their accounts have been exposed in a plaintext file, which you'll find conveniently in the emptystack directory.

1. Navigate your terminal to the emptystack directory.
2. Use ls to see the contents of the directory.
3. Use cat to read the contents of the accounts.txt file.

If you see a long list of credentials in your terminal, then you're on the right track! Instead of manually searching through the output, you can use a command to search for the account that corresponds to the ID you found earlier.

You can pipe the output of one command into another with |. In this case, you want to use cat to read the file, and then grep to search the output of cat. For example, if you wanted to search for the name "Zoe" in a file named roster.txt, you would run cat roster.txt | grep Zoe

Note

If you are on a Windows machine, use findstr instead of grep: cat roster.txt | findstr Zoe

1. Pipe cat into grep to find the username and password that corresponds to the ID you found earlier.
2. Take a screenshot of your terminal once you've found the credentials.

Access the account

You now have the username and password of our clumsy EmptyStack engineer. It's time to access the mainframe! We'll need an administrator account to stop the project, so let's log in and look for some clues.

1. Navigate your terminal to the emptystack directory.
2. Run the command node mainframe.js to begin the login sequence. You will be prompted to enter a username and password. Enter the credentials you found earlier. If you type everything in correctly, you'll be greeted with a welcome message. If not, then run node mainframe.js again until you get it right.
3. Take a screenshot of your terminal once you've successfully logged in.

Stop the project

You're in! Looks like you have some messages from an admin account. You should also have access to a list of the projects that EmptyStack Solutions is working on. You know that the codename of the project you're looking for is "LAKE".

1. Navigate your terminal to the emptystack directory.
2. Use your terminal to find the credentials of the admin account in accounts.txt.
3. Use your terminal to find the ID of project LAKE in projects.txt.

Once you have the admin username, password, and the project ID, you're ready to stop the project!

1. Run node mainframe -stop to initiate the project stop sequence. You will be prompted to enter the admin credentials and project ID. If you type everything in correctly, you'll be greeted with a congratulatory message. If not, then run node mainframe -stop again until you get it right.
2. Take a screenshot of your terminal once you've successfully stopped the project.

Submission

Congrats! You have successfully stopped EmptyStack Solutions! At this point, you should feel comfortable using pwd, ls, cd, and cat. To get credit for your hard work, make sure to submit all screenshots you took during the workshop.