2 How to Create and Use Virtual Machines For Hacking, Hacking Complete Free Course Step By Step
How to Create and Use Virtual Machines For Hacking
Virtual machines allow you to run an operating system in an app window on your desktop that behaves like a full, separate computer. You can use them play around with different operating systems, run software your main operating system can’t, and try out apps in a safe, sandboxed environment.
There are several good free virtual machine (VM) apps out there, which makes setting up a virtual machine something anybody can do. You’ll need to install a VM app, and have access to installation media for the operating system you want to install.
What’s a Virtual Machine?
A virtual machine app creates a virtualized environment—called, simply enough, a virtual machine—that behaves like a separate computer system, complete with virtual hardware devices. The VM runs as a process in a window on your current operating system. You can boot an operating system installer disc (or live CD) inside the virtual machine, and the operating system will be “tricked” into thinking it’s running on a real computer. It will install and run just as it would on a real, physical machine. Whenever you want to use the operating system, you can open the virtual machine program and use it in a window on your current desktop.
In the VM world, the operating system actually running on your computer is called the host and any operating systems running inside VMs are called guests. It helps keep things from getting too confusing.
In a particular VM, the guest OS is stored on a virtual hard drive—a big, multi-gigabyte file stored on your real hard drive. The VM app presents this file the guest OS as a real hard drive. This means you won’t have to mess around with partitioning or doing anything else complicated with your real hard drive.
Virtualization does add some overhead, so don’t expect them to be as fast as if you had installed the operating system on real hardware. Demanding games or other apps that require serious graphics and CPU power don’t really do so well, so virtual machines aren’t the ideal way to play Windows PC games on Linux or Mac OS X at least, not unless those games are much older or aren’t graphically demanding.
The limit to how many VMs you can have are really just limited by the amount of hard drive space. Here’s a peek at some of the VMs we use when testing things out while writing articles. As you can see, we’ve got full VMs with several versions of Windows and Ubuntu installed.
You can also run multiple VMs at the same time, but you’ll find yourself somewhat limited by your system resources. Each VM eats up some CPU time, RAM, and other resources.
Why You’d Want to Create a Virtual Machine
Aside from being good geeky fun to play around with, VMs offer a number of serious uses. They allow you to experiment with another OS without having to install it on your physical hardware. For example, they are a great way to mess around with Linux—or a new Linux distribution—and see if it feels right for you. When you’re done playing with an OS, you can just delete the VM.
VMs also provide a way to run another OS’ software. For example, as a Linux or Mac user, you could install Windows in a VM to run Windows apps you might not otherwise have access to. If you want to run a later version of Windows—like Windows 10—but have older apps that only run on XP, you could install Windows XP into a VM.
Another advantage VMs provide is that they are “sandboxed” from the rest of your system. Software inside a VM can’t escape the VM to tamper with the rest of your system. This makes VMs a safe place to test apps—or websites—you don’t trust and see what they do.
For example, when the “Hi, we’re from Windows” scammers came calling, we ran their software in a VM to see what they would actually do—the VM prevented the scammers from accessing our computer’s real operating system and files.
Sandboxing also allows you to run insecure OSes more safely. If you still need Windows XP for older apps, you could run it in a VM where at least the harm of running an old, unsupported OS is mitigated.
Virtual Machine Apps
There are several different virtual machine programs you can choose from:
- VirtualBox: (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X): VirtualBox is very popular because it’s open-source and completely free. There’s no paid version of VirtualBox, so you don’t have to deal with the usual “upgrade to get more features” upsells and nags. VirtualBox works very well, particularly on Windows and Linux where there’s less competition, making it a good place to start with VMs.
- VMware Player: (Windows, Linux): VMware has their own line of virtual machine programs. You can use VMware Player on Windows or Linux as a free, basic virtual machine tool. More advanced features—many of which are found in VirtualBox for free—require upgrading to the paid VMware Workstation program. We recommend starting out with VirtualBox, but if it doesn’t work properly you may want to try VMware Player.
- VMware Fusion: (Mac OS X): Mac users must buy VMware Fusion to use a VMware product, since the free VMware Player isn’t available on a Mac. However, VMware Fusion is more polished.
- Parallels Desktop: (Mac OS X): Macs also have Parallels Desktop available. Both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion for Mac are more polished than the virtual machine programs on other platforms, since they’re marketed to average Mac users who might want to run Windows software.
While VirtualBox works very well on Windows and Linux, Mac users may want to buy a more polished, integrated Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion program. Windows and Linux tools like VirtualBox and VMware Player tend to be targeted to a geekier audience.
There are many more VM options, of course. Linux includes KVM, an integrated virtualization solution. Professional and Enterprise version of Windows 8 and 10—but not Windows 7—include Microsoft’s Hyper-V, another integrated virtual machine solution. These solutions can work well, but they don’t have the most user-friendly interfaces.
How to Install Kali Linux in VMware Workstation
If you want to start with your cybersecurity journey, Kali Linux is one of the best operating systems for you as a beginner. It has plenty of tools you can use for ethical hacking or penetration testing purposes.
Install Kali Linux on VMware, as it is one of the best options to get familiar with this advanced operating system. Even if you mess up or install a feature incorrectly in the virtual environment, it would have no adverse repercussions on the host OS.
Here’s everything you need to know about installing Kali in VMware’s virtual environment.
Installation Requirements
The minimum requirements for installing Kali Linux within VMware are as follows:
- Disk Space: Minimum 10GB
- Architecture: i386 or amd64
- RAM: Minimum 512MB
- VMware (VMware Player)
- Kali Linux ISO image
Step 1: Download Kali Linux's ISO File
Before installing Kali Linux in VMware, the first thing you have to do is download the Kali Linux image by visiting the official website.
Download: Kali Linux
Note: Download the ISO file according to your system architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) to avoid downloading the wrong version altogether.
Step 2: Create a New Virtual Machine
After you have downloaded the ISO file, it's time to create a virtual machine on VMware. Open VMware and click on Create a New Virtual Machine.
Once the next window appears, you need to provide the Kali Linux ISO by clicking on the Browse option. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the file and select Next.
Usually, VMware detects the operating system automatically; however, VMware might display the following error:
Could not detect which operating system is in this disc image. You will need to Specify which operating system will be installed.
If this is the case with your installation too, just ignore the warning by hitting Next.
Choose the Guest operating system on the next screen. You have to select Linux as the guest operating system. In the Version dropdown, select the latest version of Debian, as Kali is a Debian-derived Linux distribution, followed by Next.
Provide a name for your virtual machine; this name is not fixed and can be any name of your choice. Additionally, you can also change the location of the virtual machine or leave it as is. Then, click on Next.
Check the Split virtual disk into multiple files option for enhanced performance. Select Next.
Step 3: Install the Operating System
After creating a new virtual machine, you now have to install Kali Linux. Select the newly created virtual machine and start it by selecting the Play virtual machine option. VMware will now boot into Kali Linux.
You will get a list of options to install Kali Linux; choose Graphical Install and select Continue. Use your arrow keys to navigate through the screen.
Enter the hostname for your system within this Network Configuration box, provide a machine name and select Continue.
Enter the domain name for your system. Then, type a username to create an account (the user won't have superuser access).
On the next screen, you would need to enter the previously entered user name again. Set a password for your username, which you will use to enter into your system post-installation.
Now it's time to partition your disk; keep this at default (Guided - use entire disk) and hit Continue.
Select a disk to partition (SDA, VMware Virtual disk). The installation wizard will ask you to choose a partitioning scheme. Highlight the option that says All files in one partition (recommended for new users) and click on Continue.
Once you select the relevant options, you will get a summary of your disk partitions. Select Finish Partitioning. Keep clicking on Continue on each screen to move forward to the next.
Select Yes for confirming the changes. Once you all the required parameters, the actual installation will start, which takes a little while to complete.
Step 4: Install VMware Tools on Kali Linux VM
Once the virtual machine starts, you will receive a pop-up menu asking you to install VMware Tools for Linux. Install these to get advanced features for your virtual machine. If you don't want to install them, you can select Remind Me Later.
Install Operating Systems on Virtual Machines
The installation process can be a little cumbersome, especially if you don't know how to go about it. However, with the steps listed above, rest assured, you will be in safe hands. The detailed procedure on how to install Kali Linux on VMware is simple, and here to help you install it directly on a virtual machine.
You can install Kali Linux on Oracle's VirtualBox also, as the service is free to download and can be accessed easily.
In our last blog we had installed all the What is a hacker?, our next tops will be How to create Virtual Network for Kali Linux. If you have not followed us yet, then do so so that you do not miss the upcoming topics.
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