The best way to learn to use the Metasploit Framework is by practicing—repeating a task until you fully understand how it is accomplished. This appendix explains how to set up a test environment to use with the examples in this book.
The examples in this book use a combination of Back|Track, Ubuntu 9.04, Metasploitable, and Windows XP. Back|Track serves as our vehicle for exploitation, and the Ubuntu and Windows systems are our target systems.
First create an unpatched Windows XP Service Pack 2 installation to test the examples presented throughout this book. The Back|Track and Ubuntu 9.04 virtual machines can be run on a host machine running Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux on any VMware product, including Workstation, Server, Player, Fusion, or ESX.
Note
Be careful with your Ubuntu and Windows XP virtual machines, because these systems are vulnerable and easy to exploit. Do not conduct any sensitive activities on these machines: If you can exploit them, anyone else can, too.
If you don’t already have the free VMware Player for Windows and Linux, download and install it. If you’re using OS X, download the free 30-day trial of VMware Fusion. (If you’re running Windows, you can also use the free VMware Server edition.)
After you have installed VMware, double-click the .vmx file to use with VMware, or open the virtual machine files in VMware Player by choosing File ▸ Open and pointing to the folder that contains all the virtual machines and associated files. If you’re installing from an ISO disc image, create a new virtual machine and specify this ISO file as the CD-ROM device.
Note
Download Back|Track from http://www.backtrack-linux.org/ and Ubuntu 9.04 from http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/ by searching for Ubuntu 9.04. Metasploitable can be downloaded from http://blog.metasploit.com/2010/05/introducing-metasploitable.html.