HTB Beginner Guide — Hands-On Connecting to HTB | By: CyberAlp0

Beginner Guide to solving HackTheBox Machines | By:@cyberalp0

Starting your journey on Hack The Box can feel overwhelming, especially for newcomers. The process of connecting to the VPN, spawning a machine, enumerating it, and successfully hacking it can be a lot to handle.

That’s why I am introducing series of blogs and write-ups that will give you hands-on beginning with HTB labs and how to build a good mindset for solving the labs in different levels. starting with the “Starting Point” levels.

Starting Point Labs are designed to be a beginner-friendly experience, providing a linear series of machines with easy exploit paths, helping you understand how the platform works, connect with machines, and develop a foundational understanding of hacking.

Each Starting Point machine will be explained in a detailed writeup published at my profile, mentioning the solving process and concepts involved.

Step 1: Connecting to HTB Servers

In order to gain access to the machine, you will be prompted to be on the same network of the HTB Lab. thus, you will navigate to the “Connect to HTB” section (on the top right of the window). Click on starting point as shown on the below screenshot.

Connecting to HTB Servers Via VPN, in order to obtain the IP addresses of the starting point labs.

Once you Click on the “Connect to HTB”, Click on the “Starting Point” as shown in the below screenshot.

Connecting to the “Starting Point” labs.

Then, Connect to the “Starting Point” Labs using OpenVPN, as shown in the below screenshot.

Connecting to the “Starting Lab” labs using OpenVPN.

Once you click on the OpenVPN option, you will be redirected to another window that has lots of options. leave all options as it is and just click on “Download VPN”.

You shall find a file with an extension “.ovpn” downloaded in the Downloads Directory.

Downloading the .ovpn file in order to connect to the server of the starting point labs.

Step 2: Connecting Kali to the “Starting Point” Labs Servers

In order to connect to the HTB Starting Point Labs Servers. you shall write the following command on the terminal to successfully connect to the servers of “Starting Point Labs”.

Connecting to the servers of the Starting Point Labs through the command “openvpn”.

If you aren’t a root user, make sure you type sudo before the command.

Finally, You are now successfully connected to the HTB Starting Point Servers.

To make sure you are connected successfully, you shall see the “starting Point” button lighted with green on the top right corner of the window, as shown in the below screenshot.

You are now connected successfully to the “Starting Point Servers” to solve the machines.

Step 3: Spawn the machine and begin hacking!

Choose the machine you wish to solve and click on “SPAWN MACHINE” as shown in the below screenshot.

Fetching the IP of the Machine, you want to PWN.

You will find the IP address of the Machine shown as in the below screenshot.

IP Address of “Three” Machine.

Now, Begin solving the tasks of the machine till you find the machine flag.

You can check my Blogs/Write-ups, in which I explain step-by-step how you can starting solving different machines on HTB in different stages.