[AoEMonk]

Welcome to my tutorial: All about SHELLS!

I am sure many have you have read about "Hacked / Defaced with shells", So I am pretty sure that the first thing that comes to your mind is "What the heck are these shells?" . So this article would give you complete idea about shells and its use.


Difference between FTP & Shells:

Many times I see that some of us know how to use the shell but once they have uploaded they get confused. So to start with, Let me give you some information about FTP:

Spoiler (Click to View)File Transfer Protocol

Whenever you want to open your website, the first thing you will do is to get some web hosting for your self. That cud be either free or paid. When your get your hosting services, you create a website on your computer first and then upload it to your hosting server so it becomes a World Wide Web. This process of uploading the documents from your computer to your hosting server is done through FTP [File Transfer Protocol]. It basically looks like a program with 2 columns, one column shows your computer files and another shows your servers files. Just like when you copy the stuffs from some USB drive to your computer. So here, I will show you an example is how you would connect if you own go4expert. So when you want to connect your self to your web hosting server, following information is required in order to authenticate yourself:

Server : ftp.go4expert.com
Username: shabbir
password: whatever

So, once you put in this information, server understands that you are shabbir and gives you access to all the files on the server so you can work on it.

Shells:

Spoiler (Click to View)Since you understand the FTP now, we know that none of us will get access to Go4expert's server because we don't have the username and password authenticate yourself. Somehow we can manage to get the access to G4E's FTP we can easily remove/edit/replace files. So we can destroy this entire forum and upload our own stuffs. That is when shells comes into the picture. Shells are a malicious PHP files which you will need to upload to any website, and once you execute it you will get access to its server directly WITHOUT authenticating your self.

Logic

Spoiler (Click to View)Shell is not a tool that you can run and complete your work. As I said, its just a normal ".php" file, you have to find a way in any website to upload that shell. The Idea is, you upload the shell to any website so it will be saved on their server and it will give you the access to it.

Phase 1 : Uploading a shell:

Spoiler (Click to View)Suppose you want to hack "something.com". So the first thing that you will do is, open up "something.com", and try to find some place from where you can upload the files on the website. There are many such places for example, "file uploads, avatars, resume upload, cooking recipe uploads, upload your photo". So these are the places which will give you an opportunity to upload your shell. All you have to do is, try to upload the shell.php which is located in your computer and click on submit. So suppose you went to the webpage "something.com/submit_resume.php" and you uploaded your resume.

Phase 2 : Executing your uploaded shelll:

Spoiler (Click to View)Once we have uploaded the shell as shown in "Phase:1", we know that its sitting on the server. The only thing we need to do now is to execute the shell from a browser so we get access to it.

Example:

So suppose i uploaded my shell as an attachment in THIS THREAD. SO now taht attachment is sitting on G4E's server. Now if we want to executive it, we will use following URL:

Code

http://www.go4expert.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=456&d=1249607339

So that is the DIRECT url to the attachment which is called EXECUTION. In the same way if you execute your shell, it will take you to a webpage where you will see everything thats on the server. And you will have FULL ACCESS to remove/edit/replace/delete the files. So you are another shabbir!

Phase 3 : Defacing:

Spoiler (Click to View)Defacing is a word which means "replacing the current index file with our own index with our motive and slogan on it. So once you have access to the server, you are the king.

Different types of shells:

Spoiler (Click to View)There are many shells available, most of them are public and some of them are private. Most of them does the samething to give you the access of the server. "c99, r57, b0yzone, j32" are some very common and easily available shells.

Important Piece of advice:

Spoiler (Click to View)I would suggest you to download

Code

http://www.wampserver.com/en/

, which lets you make your own server on your comptuer. And then try to use shells on it. Which will help you avoid hacking in live environment. Because, if webmaster is smart then, he can simply check the logs for that shell fine and track down your IP which executed the shell. Then you might be in problem.

Thanks for your time reading the article. Hope you liked it.

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Also guys, I'm taking suggestions on what to make a new tutorial :)

[Dead_Status]

Excellent tutorial! It really helped to understand shells and how they work. I could never find a guide or tutorial. Thanks.

[AoEMonk]

No problem and thanks :) If you got any requests I'll gladly do a tutorial about it.

[Dead_Status]

Alright, i'll remember to keep that in mind.

[PregoPastaSauce]

I would love a tutorial on the how to make some private shells :) PM me about it? :D

[rubanrecobath]

awsome tutorial man great job

[AoEMonk]

Thanks for the great feedback guys :)

[Johnny87au]

awesome write up dude, could you explain in a full detailed tutorial how to do everything though ???? Check your pm box also hehe

[depojones]

Great tutorial! Didn't know the difference until now :)

[zacharyfxx]

Bumpity Bump Bumped nice tut

[Frostbite™]

Wow amazing thread, I didn't know what they were before. I'll definitely be using them a lot more now :)

[Obi-Wan Cannabis]

I was just about to go search on wikipedia what were shells. The first thing I found was that shitty turtle of Mario Games. :D
Thanks for the tutorial!

[AoEMonk]

Lol. Thanks for the feedback guys :)

[thestapler42]

great tut! love the practice website download haha ill definitely try it there!

[!ron m@n]

N1ce tutorial keep it bro :)