How to Setup a Hacking Lab Using Parrot Security and Virtual Box
A Virtual Hacking Lab or a VHL refers to a central but controlled and isolated environment that is useful for research, testing, and cybersecurity training.
A VHL is often composed of a virtualized network environment hosting multiple operating systems and network services, mimicking real-world systems and network infrastructures.
Whether you are just getting started in ethical hacking or a seasoned pro, having a VHL allows you to experiment and test all kinds of tools and malicious tools without affecting your main system
In this tutorial, we are going to show you how you can configure a VHL using VirtualBox as the virtualization software ,Parrot Security as the attacker machine, and Metasploitable as the target machine.
By following this tutorial, you will be in a very good position to follow our upcoming Metasploit series where we explore the ins and out of the Metasploit framework.
Hardware Requirements
Before we dive into how to setup the lab, there are a few recommended hardware requirements for your system. Keep in mind that this are guidelines and you can get away with less resources but with an impact at the performance.
- At least 10GB Disk Space.
- When it comes to memory allocation, it will vary depending on the role of the machine in the lab. However, refer to the following outlines as simple guides:
- The Host Machine: 8GB and above
- The Attacker Machine Recommended Memory Requirements: 2GB and more.
- The Victim Machine Recommended Memory Requirements: 512MB or more.
- Network Connectivity.
- Virtualization Enabled CPU.
Software Requirements
On the software side of things, we recommend the following:
- Hypervisor - VirtualBox
- Host System - Linux or Windows
Setting Up The Host Machine
The only thing you need to do on your host machine is to enable hardware level virtualization. Check the procedure on how to this for your system on your manufacturer website.
Once you have enabled, head over to the official VirtualBox
