chrono

Published: April 26, 2023Updated: December 9, 2025

Description

Investigate cron-based automation on the remote server to discover where the challenge metadata is stored.

SSH to the provided host/port and authenticate with the given password.

Navigate into /challenge and read metadata.json.

ssh -p 49702 picoplayer@saturn.picoctf.net
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cd ../.. && cd challenge
cat metadata.json

Solution

  1. Step 1List cron artifacts
    Although the flavor text references cron, the flag ends up in /challenge/metadata.json. Visiting that path is enough.
  2. Step 2Read the flag
    Use cat or vim to read metadata.json and copy the picoCTF flag at the top.

Flag

picoCTF{Sch3...44}

Even though cron is hinted, the flag is stored in a static JSON file.