How to connect to Hack The Box VPN

To start hacking the machines on Hack The Box, you need to first connect to the HTB VPN.

In this article I will be connecting to a starting point machine.

Step 1: Click on ‘Connect to HTB’ at top right corner, next to your username

Step 2: Select the machine, if you are playing Starting point machines, click on Starting Point, if you are playing any other machine, click on Machines

Step 3: Now, there are two different methods to connect to HTB

Method 1: Using OpenVPN

• Click on OpenVPN
• Choose your VPN access, VPN server and protocol (If unsure, leave everything to defaults, it should work fine)
• Then download the VPN

• After the download has finished, open your terminal and navigate to the directory where the file is downloaded (usually it might be on Downloads) using cd command.
• Check the contents of the directory using ls command and make sure the file is there
• Use the command sudo openvpn {filename} to run OpenVPN

If you see the message “Initialization Sequence Completed” it means that the connection has been established successfully

Leave this terminal tab running background and open a new tab and start hacking

Once you have finished hacking, you can use the Ctrl + C keyboard combination to terminate the connection to the VPN

Method 2: Using Pwnbox

(Free users can use the pwnbox for free for 2 hours)

• Click on Pwnbox
• Choose your Pwnbox location, VPN access and VPN server
• Then click on “start pwnbox”

After some time, you will get a screen like shown below:

To use the machine full screen, click on open desktop and the machine will be opened in full screen in a new tab

Once you have finished hacking, you can come back to the hack the box page and terminate the pwnbox.

Happy hacking! 👨‍💻