Hello
difficulty 1/10
This level walks you through the very basics of how to play the game.
1. Set up MetaMask with Ropsten
If you don't have it already, install the MetaMask browser extension (in Chrome, Firefox, Brave or Opera on your desktop machine). Set up the extension's wallet and use the network selector to point to the 'Ropsten test network' in the top left of the extension's interface.
2. Open the browser's console
Open your browser's console: Tools > Developer Tools.
You should see a few messages from the game. One of them should state your player's address. This will be important during the game! You can always see your player address by entering the following command:
player
Keep an eye out for warnings and errors, since they could provide important information during gameplay.
3. Use the console helpers
You can also see your current ether balance by typing:
await getBalance(player)
Great! To see what other utility functions you have in the console type:
help()
These will be super handy during gameplay.
4. The ethernaut contract
Enter the following command in the console:
ethernaut
This is the game's main smart contract. You don't need to interact with it directly through the console (as this app will do that for you) but you can if you want to. Playing around with this object now is a great way to learn how to interact with the other smart contracts of the game.
Go ahead and expand the ethernaut object to see what's inside.
5. Interact with the ABI
ethernaut is a TruffleContract object that wraps the Ethernaut.sol contract that has been deployed to the blockchain.
Among other things, the contract's ABI exposes all of Ethernaut.sol's public methods, such as owner. Type the following command for example:
await ethernaut.methods.owner().call()
You can see who the owner of the ethernaut contract is, which is not you of course =D.
6. Get test ether
To play the game, you will need test ether. The easiest way to get some testnet ether is via the MetaMask faucet.
Once you see some ether in your balance, move on to the next step.
7. Getting a level instance
When playing a level, you don't interact directly with the ethernaut contract. Instead, you ask it to generate a level instance for you. To do so, click the blue button at the bottom of the page. Go do it now and come back!
You should be prompted by MetaMask to authorize the transaction. Do so, and you should see some messages in the console. Note that this is deploying a new contract in the blockchain and might take a few seconds, so please be patient when requesting new level instances!
8. Inspecting the contract
Just as you did with the ethernaut contract, you can inspect this contract's ABI through the console using the contract variable.
The contract variable is a web3 Contract instance. You may look into the web3 documentation to better understand how to interact with the smart contract from your console.
9. Interact with the contract to complete the level
Look into the levels's info method
await contract.methods.info().call()
You should have all you need to complete the level within the contract.
10. Sending transaction
To send a transaction, usually to alter states, remember to use the .send() method.
await contract.methods.<contract-method>().send()
When you know you have completed the level, submit the contract using the orange button at the bottom of the page. This sends your instance back to the ethernaut, which will determine if you have completed it.