New Training: All About Shells

In this 6-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Bob Salmans introduces you to shells. You’ll discuss the many different types of shells, how to use them, and when you’d want to use each of them. Watch this new CompTIA training.

Watch the full course: CompTIA PenTest+

This training includes:

• 6 videos

• 52 minutes of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Bind and Reverse Shells

• The Power of Web Shells

• Working With Bind and Reverse Shells

• Shell One-Liners

• Spawning Meterpreter Shells

• Log Poisoning for a Shell

Do I Need to Learn What a Shell Is?

The shell is the heart of interacting with an OS. Shells are the basic means of performing input and output operations and working with applications. Talk to any computer engineer and they'll tell you they live and die by the shell, but what is a shell? Here are some common examples.

Depending on which operating system you are using, you may be interacting with a different type of shell. One of the most well-known shells is the Command Prompt for Windows. The Command Prompt is a command-line tool that evolved from DOS, an operating system popular with home computers in the late '80s and early '90s.

Another Windows shell is Power Shell. Power Shell is regarded as having more power than the Command Prompt, but it has many of the same features.

If you use Linux, there's a good chance that you are using Bash. Bash is one of the many shell environments available for Linux, though it is arguably the most popular.

Shells have many common features such as being able to create or delete files or directories or traverse the directory structure of a computer. Despite which shell you are using, they are an important means of interacting with computers and are something all computer engineers should understand.