Ah I see. I always referred to the Over the Wire link I put in above. 

There really isn't any other way to know what is expected of you for the level. Some levels leave you in an empty home dir. Some Levels you need info from the OTW page you'll copy/paste in.

Yes, I bet you were having quite a hard time without reading that! 

I know I said, if you get really stuck, there are web sites out there with full bandit solutions on them.  But, I don't feel reading the OTW web site for the level goal, then researching commands or tools to solve it on your own is cheating. 

How else did we all learn any of this stuff. Figure out what needs to be done, and how a thing works, then manipulate it! Hacking. ;)