An Old Hillbilly’s Guide to BASH for Pentests: Automating, Logging, and Covering Your Butt

No ratings

Presented at GrrCON 2025 by

Adam Compton

Penetration testing is full of repetitive tasks”scanning, note-taking, rerunning the same commands, and inevitably forgetting something important. But what if you could make your life easier and your engagements more consistent with a little Bash scripting? This talk will explore how Bash can automate the tedious, streamline workflows, and prevent costly mistakes. From simple one-liners that improve logging to advanced scripts that handle reconnaissance, credential testing, and post-exploitation, you’ll see how automation can make pentesting faster, more reliable, and less painful. Bash scripting isn’t just about saving time”it’s about ensuring repeatability, accuracy, and efficiency. It keeps you from skipping steps, missing evidence, or worse”having to redo work you’ve already suffered through once. So, if you like efficiency, hate unnecessary effort, or just want to script your way to a smoother pentest, come learn how to let Bash do the heavy lifting for you.