I wrote this tutorial for helping the (Newbies) out. I go to www.hackers.com www.elitehackers.com and sometimes at www.antionline.com I see all these threads about how do I crack a password file or How do "I use John the Ripper" I have a fealing I will get flamed and people will hurl insults to me for trying to help.

Here it is
John the Ripper
Difficulty: Extremely Easy if you can not do this you should not be on a computer
Learn to use this tool to crack passwd files



Below is an example passwd file:

jeunehom:uRavlb2TZc7fA:10009:100:Fanny JEUNEHOMME,Promo2001:/home/jeunehom:/bin/bash cellier:6VVFRl.ib8J4E:10012:100:Remi Cellier,Promo2001:/home/cellier:/bin/bash dischamp:bAndzoL65f2sY:10017:100:Sylvestre Dischamp, Promo2001:/home/dischamp:/bin/bash artus:z0A3df0OmqmFI:10027:100:Guillaume ARTUS,Promo2001:/home/artus:/bin/bash

This is what it would appear like with most exploits, so now you have to break the passwd file up into single line entries as follows:

jeunehom:uRavlb2TZc7fA:10009:100:Fanny JEUNEHOMME,Promo2001:/home/jeunehom:/bin/bash
cellier:6VVFRl.ib8J4E:10012:100:Remi Cellier,Promo2001:/home/cellier:/bin/bash
dischamp:bAndzoL65f2sY:10017:100:Sylvestre Dischamp, Promo2001:/home/dischamp:/bin/bash
artus:z0A3df0OmqmFI:10027:100:Guillaume
Now let us examine an entry:

jeunehom:uRavlb2TZc7fA:10009:100:Fanny JEUNEHOMME,Promo2001:/home/jeunehom:/bin/bash

Username: jeunehom
Password Hash: uRavlb2TZc7fA
Permissions: 10009:100
Name: Fanny JEUNEHOMME,Promo2001
Home Directory: /home/jeunehom
Logon Shell: /bin/bash

So to crack this take a text editor and place the entire entry into it, name the file passwd.txt then go into dos and execute john with a simmilar command line to the following:

D:\Apps\JOHN-16\RUN>john passwd.txt
Loaded 1 password (Standard DES [48/64 4K])

John the Ripper is now brute forcing passwd.txt to check its progress you can press space and it will come up with something like the following:

guesses: 0 time: 0:00:00:03 (3) c/s: 37110 trying: shance1 - meter

When John the Ripper returns you to the command prompt the passwd has been cracked, to view it do the following:

D:\Apps\JOHN-16\RUN>john -show passwd.txt
albert:jupiter:666:666:Section 3:/home/section3:/bin/csh

This shows us that the user 'albert' with a password of 'jupiter' has been found.

I hope this helps someone out.