+
+
+ Having a good environment is a must when you want to do binary exploitaton. Here I will show you how to set up a simple environment using Ubuntu and WSL2 +so you can straight up jump into finding and writing your exploits.
+ + +Agenda + + + + # + + +
+Things we will be setting up:
+-
+
- Ubuntu inside our Windows WSL2 +
- Pwntools library for writing exploits +
- PwnDbg for debugging and finding vulnerability on programms +
Setting up Ubuntu on WSL2 + + + + # + + +
+Change WSL version to 2
+wsl --set-default-version 2
+
++
Searching for our distribution in the online marketplace
+wsl --list --online
+
++
Installing our distribution with a suitable version. Here I will be instaling Ubuntu 24.04 which comes under their LTS
+ wsl --install -d Ubuntu-24.04
+
++
After the installation, it will prompt you to set up a user with a password. After which it will drop you to your user shell
+and you should be able to see something like this.
+
Configuring 32-bit environment + + + + # + + +
+Since the distribution we installed is of 64-bit, we must set it up to run 32-bit programs as well. Its very common in CTFs that we receive 32-bit binaries.
+Installing all the necessary packages and libraries.
+sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
+sudo apt-get update
+
++
sudo apt install build-essential
+
++
sudo apt install gcc-multilib
+
+
+
+Setting up PwnTools library + + + + # + + +
+Pwntools is a CTF framework and exploit development library. Written in Python, it is designed for rapid prototyping and development, and intended to make exploit writing as simple as possible.
+sudo apt-get update
+sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-dev git libssl-dev libffi-dev build-essential
+python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
+python3 -m pip install --upgrade pwntools
+
+
+
+Working around the PIP upgrade error + + + + # + + +
+
+There are many solutions to it. The best and the recommended one is to set up a virtual environment.
+The second would be to use the --break-system-packages tag with our pip command and
+the third is to set up a config so that we dont have to pass the tag everytime we use pip.
Lets set up a config for our pip
+mkdir .config
+mkdir .config/pip
+touch .config/pip/pip.conf
+edit pip.conf
[global]
+break-system-packages = true
+Now we should be able to continue our installing without any errors.
+
+
+
We can confirm our installation by loading the library into Python
+
Setting up PwnDbg + + + + # + + +
+PwnDbg is a GDB plug-in that makes debugging with GDB suck less, with a focus on features needed by low-level software developers, hardware hackers, reverse-engineers and exploit developers.
+First lets start by installing gdb
+sudo apt install gdb
+
++
Installing and setting up PwnDbg
+git clone https://github.com/pwndbg/pwndbg
+cd pwndbg
+./setup.sh
+
+
+
+
+Resources + + + + # + + +
+-
+
- PwnTools - http://pwntools.com/ +
- PwnDbg - https://pwndbg.re/ +
- How to install Linux on Windows with WSL +
- Windows Subsystem for Linux +
FAQ + + + + # + + +
+ + +What to do after this? + + + + # + + +
+Well, I would suggest installing a code exitor such as VSCode on your host machine for you to write exploits or you can be a chad and install neovim on your linux.
+After that you can set up a disassembler and decompiler of your choice. There are many to choose from but these are some of my picks:
+ +Now that you are all set, the only thing left is to start hacking and writing exploits
+ + + + +