Project 5: Kali Virtual Machine
What You Need for This Project
- A computer with an Internet connection.
- The instructions below assume you are using Windows 10 as the host system. You can use VMware on the Mac and other operating systems, but the steps may be somewhat different.
Task 1: Preparing your Host Machine
The physical computer you use is called a “Host”. The virtual machines that run on it are called “Guests”.
Start Your Host Machine
Ignore the instructions in red if you are using your personal machine. The instructions are for classroom exercise
If you are working in C181, select a machine to be your primary machine for the semester. You’ll want to keep using the same machine as much as possible, because your virtual machines will be there.
Log on as student with a password of student
Making Your VM (Virtual Machines) Folder
Click Start, “File Explorer”, “This PC”. Find the “VMs” drive and double-click it to open it.
In the VMs window, right-click the empty space and click New, Folder. Name the folder “YOUR NAME VMs” replacing YOUR NAME with your own name.
Installing VMware
If you are working in C181, the lab machines should already have VMware installed.
If you are using your own PC, you can get the free VMware Player here:
https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/14_0Links to an external site.
If you are using a Mac, you can get a free copy of VMware Fusion from the college as explained by your instructor, or use VirtualBox.
Install VMware with the default options.
Task 2: Preparing a Kali Virtual MachineDownloading a Kali VM File
In a Web browser, go to:
https://www.kali.org/get-kali/#kali-virtual-machinesLinks to an external site.
Unzip the file into your directory on the VMs drive.
Starting your Kali Virtual Machine
In VMware Player, at the top left, click Player, File, Open.
Navigate to the Kali VM you unzipped and start it.
Troubleshooting: Number of ProcessorsIf you see a message saying the virtual machine is configured to use four processors, adjust it with these steps:
- On the left side of the VMware Player window, click Kali once to select it.
- On the lower right side of the VMware Player window, click “Edit virtual machine settings”.
- On the left side of the Virtual Machine Settings window, click Processors
- On the right side of the Virtual Machine Settings window, adjust the number to 1 and click OK
Troubleshooting: Slow PerformanceIf your virtual machines run very slowly, your host machine may be low on RAM.
You can adjust the RAM using the Virtual Machine Settings window, as explained in the previous Troubleshooting box.
Try lowering the RAM on the VMs. Lower the Kali RAM to 1024 MB, and the Windows 2008 machine to 512 MB of RAM.
Log in to Kali with the username root and a password of toor
For this class log in with the credentials, username kali, password kali
You should see the Kali Linux desktop
Open terminal at the top left hand corner, change to root with the command: sudo -i and enter kali as password
Testing your Kali Linux Networking
At the top left of the Kali Linux desktop, click the rectangular black icon to open a Terminal window.
In the Terminal window, type in this command to find your IP address, and then press the Enter key:
You should see replies, Press Ctrl+C to stop the pings.
Open terminal at the top left hand corner, change to root with the command: sudo -i and enter kali as password
Task 3: Fixing Kali AnnoyancesA. Fixing VMware Tools
VMware Tools is needed to allow copy-and-paste into and out of a virtual machine. Unfortunately it works very poorly on Kali. You can try these fixes, or just abandon it and install SSH.
I recommend just using SSH, with these instructions:
Installing SSH on KaliLinks to an external site.
If you want to try to get VMware Tools working, proceed with the steps below.
On your host Windows system, in your Web browser, use the mouse to highlight and copy this command:
echo “Copy and paste works!”
On your Kali Linux system, in a Terminal window, right-click and click Paste.
