NCAE Tutorial Playlist Notes

Notes covering the sandbox tutorial series taught by James Rice on the official NCAE Cyber Games YouTube channel.

YouTube Playlist link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqux0fXsj7x3WYm6ZWuJnGC1rXQZ1018M

Notes:

• 01 Intro to the Environment
• Linux Basics
  • 02 Linux Commands and File System
  • 03 Filesystem Navigation from the Terminal
  • 04 Making Directories and Understanding Filepaths
  • 05 Moving and Copying
  • 06 Removing Directories and Using the History
  • 07 Creating and Reading Files
  • 08 Editing with Nano or Vi
  • 09 Creating Files with Editors and Deleting Files
  • 10 Creating User Accounts
  • 11 Managing Permissions and Sudo Users
  • 12 Exploring Sudoers and Removing Users
  • 13 Groups
  • 14 Passwords and Shadow Hashes
  • 15 Less, Grep, and Pipe
  • 16 Background on Services
• Networking in Linux
  • 17 Exploring Networking Configuration
  • 18 Static Configuration in Kali with Interfaces File
  • 19 Static Configuration in CentOS with ifcfg Files ← In 2025, you can skip this. You won't be given a CentOS router.
  • 20 Static Configuration in Ubuntu with Netplan
  • 21 Testing Connectivity with Ping
  • 22 Temporary Permanent and Flushing IPs
  • 23 Using Networking Service with Netcat
  • 24 Web Services with Apache
• Mini Hack (old)
  • 25 Router Configuration and Mini Hack Completion ← Do not do this Mini Hack. Go to Video 44 and perform the Mini Hack for 2025.
  • 26 Mini Hack Reconfiguration ← Feel free to skip this. It is a recap of the old Mini Hack. It can be useful to watch for getting an overall idea of how to configure a system all at once, however.
• SSH
  • 27 SSH Service Basics
  • 28 SSH Service Cryptographic Keys
  • 29 SSH Service Passwordless Authentication
  • 30 SSH Service Through The Router
• DNS
  • 31 DNS Service Basics
  • 32 DNS Service Additional Zones
  • 33 DNS Service Through The Router
• Rsync, cron, and backups
  • 34 Rsync Service Basics
  • 35 Cron Service Intro
  • 36 Rsync and Cron Automatic Secure Backups
• Firewalls and Defense
  • 37 Intro to Firewalls with UFW
  • 38 Active Connection Defense
• Scripting
  • 39 Scripting Hello World
  • 40 Variables and User Input
  • 41 Scripts and File Paths
  • 42 Scripting and Root Permissions
  • 43 Scripted IP Changer Low Sophistication
• Mini Hack 2025
  • 44 MicroTik Routers and Mini Hack 2025 <- This is the Mini Hack you should be doing in 2025 (not the old CentOS one)