This Discussion Question thread has been created to discuss how we’re succeeding with virtualization.
- What platform did you choose? (Windows, Linux, Mac)
- Which virtualiation platform(s) did you use? (Vmware, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, or your own server farm?)
- What guest operating system(s) did you install so far?
- What advantages or disadvantages do you see about these choices?
- What was the most important “Aha” moment?
- Did you encounter any challenges or other difficulties? (it’s ok to run into an issue, as long as one learns from it!)
Week Three Handout
For virtualization, I used a Vmware kali linux box on my windows host machine. Linux has many advantages as it is the primary operating system used in penetration testing. Most security testing tools are developed for Linux and Kali is updated relatively frequently to include the most commonly used penetration testing tools. I did not encounter difficulties as I had already been using it for quite some time.
As a Mac user, I’ve known about virtualization for a while. I’ve used VirtualBox several times in the past 5 years or so to virtualize Windows and Windows-only applications. For basic programs, VirtualBox was able to handle the virtualization through Windows 10, but there’s a limit to how much can be run through a VM. If I attempted to run a game, VirtualBox was unable to fit most system requirements, as VirtualBox has a limiter on video memory up to only 128 MB. At the end of the day, it’s good for small scale applications, but as I have a Mac with an Intel chip, I ultimately decided to use Bootcamp to dual boot both macOS and Windows.
I have a windows machine, and for virtualization I downloaded VirtualBox and booted up a Kali Linux instance. There are many advantages to using Kali Linux, especially the software that comes pre-installed, such as BurpSuite and Metasploit. I also have some experience working in Kali so this seemed to be the right choice for me.
This was my first time using VirtualBox, so Google was my friend when trying to get this virtual machine up and running. I ran into some difficulties with my Network settings, but I was ultimately able to find an answer that worked for me and have been able to use this machine with no problem since.