Ubuntu/Barebones to JtR

From barebones AWS instance to John the Ripper ripping some passwords.

The Procedure

Get the Amazon Compute Instance

Get the compute instance request going, get the node fired up, and get logged in.

I use the private key for the machine, which was provided to me by Amazon, to ssh into the machine like this:

$ ssh -i my_amazon_key.pem ubuntu@<ip of amazon machine>

Then I'm in - I don't need a password.

Software Update

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install -Y unzip
$ apt-get install -Y build-essential
$ apt-get install -Y libssl-dev

Install John the Ripper

Get Zip File

I usually go with the latest jumbo file, in this case 1.8.0.6-1.

Download the zip file and extract it.

<pre. $ unzip JohnTheRipper-1.8.0.6-jumbo-1.zip

Make John the Ripper

Now change to JohnTheRipper/src directory and run the configure script:

$ cd JohTheRipper-1.8.0.6-jumbo-1/src/
$ ./configure

This will create a Makefile. The default install directory is self-contained: it's ../run/

so you can make everything:

$ make 
$ make install

Use John the Ripper

Now you can go use your John binary:

$ cd ../run
$ ./john -test

Benchmarking: wpapsk, WPA/WPA2 PSK [PBKDF2-SHA1 256/256 AVX2 8x]... DONE
Raw:    2256 c/s real, 2256 c/s virtual

Not bad at all!!!

Github Repos

First, I checked out the SecLists repo from Github: https://github.com/danielmiessler/SecLists

Then I checked out nosecleaner, a Github repo with my Python wireless scripts: https://github.com/charlesreid1/nosecleaner

Now we have some password lists (in SecLists), a basic cracking script (in nosecleaner/cracking), and we're just about ready to rumble.

The last thing we need is password files.

John Password Files

We want to transfer some already-processed password files from other computers to the AWS instance, because we don't want to waste time fiddling with software to do a conversion into this and then that and then the other format.

Use the sequence described on the Aircrack and John the Ripper page to go from an Aircrack cap file with handshakes in it to a John the Ripper password file.

Use scp to move your password files over to your cracking machine.