Virtual Machine Installation Guide

Download Kali VM (3.5 GB)

Kali Linux is a common operating system for beginners in cyber security. It comes pre-packaged with tools for things such as network mapping, password cracking, and reverse-engineering.

You have been provided with a Kali Linux Virtual Machine (VM) to use for the following projects:

The purpose of this page is to help you install/setup/use the Kali VM.

Installation

To install the VM, you will need a virtual machine manager. I recommend VirtualBox, which can be downloaded here. VirtualBox is also installed on all the CS lab machines, so feel free to use those for each project.

Importing into VirtualBox

First, open the File menu and select Import Appliance...

import

Next, select the Kali VM you downloaded (should be a .ova file). Click Next.

select

You should be brought to this window showing a bunch of options. You can keep all of these as they are and click Finish.

options

VirtualBox will now begin importing the Kali VM. You should be able to see the progress on the right side of the window.

progress

Once it finishes importing, just select the VM from the list and click Start. Here are the login details:

Username: student

Password: cs465-student

Important Files

All the necessary project files can be found in the 465-new-projects folder (located in your home directory). Inside, there should be 2 folders, buffer_overflow and extracting_secrets. All the file you will need for these projects will be in their respective folders.

Important Tools

Here is a list of the tools you will need for these projects:

  1. GNU Debugger (GDB)

    GDB is a debugging tool used for code examination and runtime manipulation. You will use GDB for the Extracting Secrets project and the Buffer Overflow project.

    To run a C executable with GDB, simply type the following into the command line:

    gdb <name of C executable>

  2. John the Ripper and Hashcat

    John the Ripper and Hashcat are both tools you will use for the Password Cracking project. They are useful for cracking hashes and creating custom wordlists.

Other Notes

To allocate more memory for your VM, just select it in VirtualBox and go to Settings/System. You can then drag the memory slider or type in how much memory you want the VM to use.

memory

You cannot change these settings while the VM is running.