Beginning of the Security Lab There are a few options, when it comes to Kali, and running it as a VM. Available for download are, prebuilt VM images, as well as different prebuilt ISO’s, depending on the environment. Here, I’m downloading the full ISO, and going to install manually, apply all outstanding updates, and install/configure SSH.
Go to Kali.org download section and select you desired download.
Create the Virtual Machine I’ve opened a VMware HTML5 client session with the Host, as I have not yet installed the VSCA. Click Create VM. Name the VM, select VM options, and configure system resources. The only non default item I configured, was to change the CD/DVD to DataStore ISO, and mount the Kali ISO, downloaded earlier.
Start the VM, and click on the little remote window, to open a remote console connection tab.
When the boot menu appears, select Install
Set a Language
Select a Location
Choose a Keyboard
Enter the Lab Domain Name
Set a Root password
Reenter the Root password
Set Time Zone
Setting up the disk partitions, I’m selecting Guided setup with LVM. I’ll explore best practices, and different partition scheme’s in a future lab.
Select the disk to be partitioned
Mentioned above, I’ve chosen to put everything on one partition
Select Yes, to write changes to disk
Select Finish Partitioning, and write changes to disk
Select Yes, to continue
Installing
Select No to Network Mirror
Installing Grub
Select Yes, to install Grub to MBR
Select drive to make system bootable
Installation Complete, select Continue
Rebooting
System is up
To check for, and apply all available updates, type the following: apt-get update && echo ‘y’ | apt-get upgrade && echo ‘y’ | apt-get dist-upgrade && echo ‘y’
Next, I’m setting up SSH. First thing is to create a key. Type: ssh-keygen Answer file in which to save the key, and assign a password
Since we are using Root to login, edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Change the option PermitRootLogin to Yes. Save and Exit the file
Restart the SSH service by typing: service ssh restart
Open your SSH client of choice on another device, and test SSH to Kali
Accepted the thumbprint, and we are in!
Now with Kali installed, I have a ton of stuff to explore and lab!