MSc Cybersecurity Practise Syllabus 1st Year

Practice terminal commands step by step.

Type real PowerShell and Arch commands for ACIT4050 lab work. Mistakes get hints, then answers.

Which environment?

EnvironmentWhenOpen
Windows PowerShellNow, without a VMStart -> PowerShell
Arch cyberlabWhen the Arch VM is runningStart_cyberlab_Arch.bat -> terminal in GNOME
Host key in VirtualBox: Right Ctrl. On Linux: paste often with Ctrl+Shift+V. Cancel with Ctrl+C.

Exercise 1: Where am I?

Both

Goal: Find out where you are, and move around.

Do this

  • a) Show the current directory
  • b) List the files in the folder
  • c) Go up one level
  • d) Go to the home directory
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)pwd / Get-Locationpwd
b)dir / lsls / ls -la
c)cd ..cd ..
d)cd ~cd ~

Exercise 2: Make a practice folder

Both

Goal: Create a safe folder to practice in.

Do this

  • a) Go to Desktop / home
  • b) Create terminal-practice
  • c) Create the subfolders notes and data
  • d) Confirm with dir / ls
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)cd ~\Desktopcd ~
b)-c)New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path terminal-practice\notes, terminal-practice\datamkdir -p ~/terminal-practice/{notes,data}
d)cd terminal-practice | dircd ~/terminal-practice | ls

Exercise 3: Create a file and read it

Both

Goal: Write, read, and append text in a file.

Do this

  • a) Create notes/hello.txt with one line
  • b) Show the contents
  • c) Append one more line (without deleting)
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)"text" | Set-Content .\notes\hello.txtecho "text" > .../hello.txt
b)type .\notes\hello.txtcat .../hello.txt
c)"Line 2" | Add-Content .\notes\hello.txtecho "Line 2" >> .../hello.txt

Exercise 4: Copy, move, delete

Both - only inside terminal-practice

Goal: Copy, rename, and delete safely.

Do this

  • a) Copy hello.txt to data/hello-copy.txt
  • b) Rename the copy: hello-archive.txt
  • c) Create and delete data/delete-me.txt
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)Copy-Item .\notes\hello.txt .\data\hello-copy.txtcp ~/terminal-practice/notes/hello.txt ~/terminal-practice/data/hello-copy.txt
b)Move-Item .\data\hello-copy.txt .\data\hello-archive.txtmv .../hello-copy.txt .../hello-archive.txt
c)"x" | Set-Content .\data\delete-me.txt | Remove-Item .\data\delete-me.txtecho x > .../delete-me.txt | rm .../delete-me.txt

Avoid rm -rf / Remove-Item -Recurse outside the practice folder.

Exercise 5: Pipe and search

Arch recommended

Goal: Pass output along and filter it.

Do this

  • a) List files recursively under terminal-practice
  • b) Filter lines containing hello
  • c) Count the matches
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)-b)Get-ChildItem .\ -Recurse -File | Where-Object Name -match 'hello'find ~/terminal-practice -type f | grep hello
c)(...).Count... | wc -l

Exercise 6: Permissions

Arch only

Goal: See and change who can read a file.

Do this

  • a) Create notes/secret.txt
  • b) Show permissions with ls -l
  • c) Set chmod 600, check again
  • d) (Optional) chmod 644
Answer key
StepArch
a)echo "..." > ~/terminal-practice/notes/secret.txt
b)ls -l .../secret.txt
c)chmod 600 ... -> expect -rw-------
d)chmod 644 ...

Exercise 7: Packages

Arch only

Goal: Update, search, and optionally install.

Do this

  • a) Update the package database
  • b) Search for tree
  • c) (Optional) Install tree
Answer key
StepArch
a)sudo pacman -Sy
b)pacman -Ss tree
c)sudo pacman -S tree

Ubuntu/Kali later: sudo apt update / sudo apt install tree.

Exercise 8: Network - ping

Both

Goal: Check network connectivity.

Do this

  • a) Ping 1.1.1.1
  • b) Ping example.com
  • c) Stop with Ctrl+C if it loops
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)ping 1.1.1.1ping -c 4 1.1.1.1
b)ping example.comping -c 4 example.com
c)Ctrl+CCtrl+C

Exercise 9: IP address

Both

Goal: Find your IPv4 address.

Do this

  • a) Show network interfaces / IP
  • b) Find IPv4 (often 192.168.... or 10....)
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)ipconfigip addr / ip -4 addr show
b)Look at the IPv4 linesLook at inet lines

Exercise 10: Checksum

Both

Goal: See that changing a file changes SHA256.

Do this

  • a) Compute SHA256 for hello.txt
  • b) Change the file, compute again
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)Get-FileHash .\notes\hello.txt -Algorithm SHA256sha256sum .../hello.txt
b)Add-Content ... + hash againecho "change" >> ... + hash again

Exercise 11: History and help

Both

Goal: Find old commands and read help.

Do this

  • a) Show command history
  • b) Open help for one command
Answer key
StepPowerShellArch
a)Get-Historyhistory | tail -20
b)Get-Help Get-ChildItemman ls (quit with q)

Exercise 12: Mini challenge

Optional

Goal: Create notes/report.txt using only the terminal.

Do this

The file should contain:

  • a) Today's date
  • b) Username
  • c) Hostname
  • d) Number of files under terminal-practice
Answer key 
# Arch
{ date; whoami; hostname; find ~/terminal-practice -type f | wc -l; } > ~/terminal-practice/notes/report.txt

# PowerShell
@(Get-Date; $env:USERNAME; $env:COMPUTERNAME; (Get-ChildItem .\ -Recurse -File).Count) | Set-Content .\notes\report.txt

Checklist

  • Exercises 1-4 (navigation + files)
  • Exercise 5 (pipe)
  • Exercises 6-7 when Arch is running
  • Exercises 8-10 (network + checksum)
  • Next: Kali + Ubuntu in VirtualBox