Because Linux caches the shadow file (like all files recently accessed), I have to generate a lot of disk activity for the file to be 'pushed out' of the cache
I think the idea is you force a disk read or write operation by interacting with the system remotely (for example uploading a file or sending a particular HTTP GET request that ends up in the log), without having shell access or write access to /proc :)
Comments
http://linux-mm.org/Drop_Caches
$ echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
or as non-root
$ echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
I think the idea is you force a disk read or write operation by interacting with the system remotely (for example uploading a file or sending a particular HTTP GET request that ends up in the log), without having shell access or write access to /proc :)
I do not believe that using sudo exactly counts as "non-root".
They meant "when not root".
In the attack scenario here, the author doesn't (yet) have root access.