Pentest Lab Setup

With this project, the goal was to successfully run Kali Linux virtual machine on a virtualization

platform and use it to find information on UAT’s website. I should then be able to answer the

several questions based on the process I went through to accomplish those goals. The questions,

along with the answers are below. An explanation of the process will then follow.

1. What are the configuration details for your VM within the Virtualization Platform?

2GB(2024MB) of memory, 4 processors, 80GB on hard disk, NAT network adapter

2. What version Kali are you running?

Kali Linux VMware Images 64-Bit Version 2020.1

3. What is the IP address of your virtual machine? 

127.0.0.1/8 and 192.168.187.132/24

4. What is the IP address of your router?

192.168.187.2

5. What is the IP address for www.uat.edu?

104.196.248.208

6. How many packages required updating after installing Kali image?

Four updates at a total of 16.8 MB

7. What type of server is hosting www.uat.edu?

nginx
 Process

Before doing any work on a virtual machine, you first have to get a virtualization

platform and an ISO image to load onto it. As I am on Windows, I used VMware Workspace. I

then downloaded the 64 bit Kali Linux virtual image and opened it on VMware by unzipping the

file, opening the folder and right clicking on a VMware virtual machine configuration file and

opening it on VMware where I could then power it on.

From here I was able to open up the VM settings and look at the configurations. After

that, I used Kali to open up a terminal in order to find the VM’s IP address. As ifconfig didn’t

seem to work, I had to use the command “ip a s | grep -w inet | awk ‘{ print $2}’” in order to get

the IP address to pop up. Then command ip route was used to find the IP address of my router. I

then used the host command to find the IP address of uat.edu as well as where it’s mail is

handled.

After finding all the IP addresses, I used apt to update the system. This originally caused

issues as I would keep getting errors preventing me from having permission to download the

updates. After finding out how to give myself permission with the sudo command and managing

to make it past a glitch that wouldn’t allow me to enter the password (it would automatically

assume the first letter I typed was the password I was entering before letting me fully type it) and

I was able to get four updates downloaded. After this, I was able to perform the final step of

using curl to find more information on uat.edu. including the type of server that is used for the

website.
 Log of Record

4/21 – 21:00 – After a day of struggling to get Kali Linux to function on VMware, finally found

the solution and got both to function.

4/22 – 10:00 – Checking configuration settings

4/22 – 11:30 – Found IPs for VM, router and uat.edu

4/22 – 12:00 – Found information on uat.edu with dig

4/30 – 22:00 - Found out how to give myself authorization for updates and successfully used apt

with the help of the sudo command.

4/30 – 22:10 – used curl to find uat.edu’s Server type

Sources

KaktaruaKaktarua 1. (2012, July 13). How to fix "Could not open lock file" because "Permission

denied"? Retrieved from https://askubuntu.com/questions/162879/how-to-fix-could-not-

open-lock-file-because-permission-denied
Raffic, M. (2017, September 12). How to Download and Install Kali Linux on VMware.

Retrieved from http://www.vmwarearena.com/how-to-download-and-install-kali-linux-

on-vmware/

Saive, R. (2013, January 14). 15 Useful "ifconfig" Commands to Configure Network Interface in

Linux. Retrieved from https://www.tecmint.com/ifconfig-command-examples/