Virtual Hacking Lab with VMWare ESXi
Welcome back hackers, today we will visit a topic that many of you may be familiar with, and build a lab. Specifically, build a virtual lab. You usually use something like VirtualBox or VMWare from Oracle, but today we'll take another step and use ESXi from VMWare. ESXi is the administrator who comes in the form of server operating system. Using ESXi to create a dedicated server to run VMs, we can create a breakthrough lab that can easily manage and deploy VMs.
Step 1: Obtaining the ESXi Installer Image
First, we need to download the ESXi image. Therefore, you will need to create an account on VMWare:
Once you've created and signed in to your account, you can download the ESXi image. Be sure to take a look at SHA256 fragmentation while you're there, and we'll check the download once you're done:
Now that the ESXi image has been downloaded, we need to verify it. This will ensure that our file has not been modified or damaged. To do this, we will use the Python script you typed. Use the curl command to download the script (you may need to use dos2unix to convert it to the correct format):
This script will output a file from a file that can be used in conjunction with the partition given at download to verify that our file is good:
Upon examination we can conclude that our file is legitimate. Now that we've downloaded and verified our file, we can move to a bootable USB output.
Step 2: Create a Bootable USB with the Image
In order to make USB bootable, there are things we have to do. The first is to determine our USB drive. We can use fdisk for this:
My USB drive is running / dev / sdb, but may be different. Once you know where your drive is, you must follow the documentation to set up the structure and transfer image files. Once you have completed this step, turn on your backup system and change BIOS options to boot from USB. Once it is turned on, follow the prompts to set up ESXi as needed. Once the installation is complete, you must be able to boot the system and connect to the ESXi interface through a web browser. This is the interface we will use to deploy and manage our VMs.
Step 3: Deploy VMs
Now that this custom default server has been set up, we can run the VMs we need! For example, I will set up boot2root from VulnHub. The ESXi interface should look something like this:
Log on to ESXi by using the credentials that you set up at installation. Now that we have control over this web interface, we can upload our VM image:
Once you have downloaded the image, we can create VM to exit it:
Once you have finished putting and ending the VM options, you should be able to boot in the newly created VM!
This program allows us to create laboratory environments that help us practice our skills in a secure legal environment. There is little risk as all machines are created and maintained in a controlled environment. A great advantage of this is that it can be implemented as a server, allowing you to control it over the network, allowing for more manageability.
It's important to know virtualization technology, because we'll use it here a lot, not just for interactive images, but also for simulating entire networks of attacks.
No comments