The Ethical Hacker Network - Your Setup or Lab

brian.gordon

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« on: May 18, 2010, 08:45:28 PM »

I ran a search on the forums to see if I could find a previous thread about this but was unsuccessful. If I just missed it, I'd appreciate a link. Cool

I'm curious as to what your setups/labs are like to test your skills. How many computers do you have, the specs and the software that you use. I'd like to get my own lab setup here to start learning some skills. I've been watching a few videos of exploits online and notice a lot of (for lack of better term) screen hopping. Do you guys use vmware to build out your labs? Would appreciate any insights.

Thanks!


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sil

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Re: Your Setup or Lab

« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2010, 09:02:44 PM »

Quote from: Brian G on May 18, 2010, 08:45:28 PM

I ran a search on the forums to see if I could find a previous thread about this but was unsuccessful. If I just missed it, I'd appreciate a link. Cool

I recommend purchasing (or via Safari): Professional Penetration Testing: Creating and Operating a Formal Hacking Lab http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Penetration-Testing-Creating-Operating/dp/1597494259

My lab consist of 2 desktops and a laptop. Both desktops have 8gigs of memory each. One has Vista (too lazy to remove) running VMWare with all Windows based operating systems on it. W2K3, W2K, W2K7, W2K8 Vista and XP. The second is *nix based with Mint running VMWare images of Backtrack, Helix, NetBSD and FreeBSD.

Using any of the systems I can pretty much image/create any environment (config) I can think of. On all of my Windows machine, they've all got WinDBG, Immunity Debugger, Canvas, Metasploit, the works. On my XP and Vista machines I run Klocwork, Peach, Commraider and Axman for fuzzying (reverse engineering). Nix based boxes are primarily used for coding, gdb, scapy (love those packets), tshark, metasploit, VoIP based tools.

On the networking side, I still have my CCIE/CCVP lab... Sickening, I barely turn it on because of the noise:

3 Stonegate FW1200's
Merge ISDN 2000AS-RM IDSN Simulator
3 Cisco Cat 3500XL
Cisco 3620 1E-2W (WIC 1T & 56/64 DSU/CSU)
Cisco 3620 2E-2W (WIC 1T)
2 Cisco 4500M (2 x 4port Serials)
Netscreen 5XT | Cisco Pix 506e
Cisco 2511 Terminal server w/Octals
Cisco 2524 (2 serials 1 ISDN BRI)
2 Cisco MC3810V (2 serials, 1 T1/E1, 1 E)
1 Cisco MC3810 (2 serials, 1 T1/E1, 1 E, 6 FXS)
1 Sonicwall Pro 2040
Cisco MC3810V (2 serials, 1 T1/E1, 1 E, 6 FXS, 1 FrATM)
Cisco 2612 (1 E, 1TR)
Cisco 2650XM (NM-ESW16, T1, T2) running Call Manager Express
2 Cisco 2612 (1 E, 1TR)
1 Cisco 2610 (1 E)
2 Netscout Switch Probe Gigabit Ethernet (1 fiber 1 eth)
Cisco 3620 1E-2W (WIC 1T & 56/64 DSU/CSU)
Cisco 3620 2E-2W (WIC 1T, VIC2FXS)
Cisco 2620 (VIC2FXS, WIC2T, 1BU)
Cisco 3500XL
Cisco 2511 w/Octals
3 Cisco 4500M's (ATM, Serials)
2 Cisco Pix
Cisco LS1010
Juniper M40 clone (Juniper Olive)
2 Juniper SSG320's
2 SSG 5's
1 Netscreen 5XT

Older and evolved pictures...
http://infiltrated.net/reDesigned/
http://infiltrated.net/juniper-pwnd.jpg

I may take some more recent ones. I have some Foundry switches (unplugged) and some Extreme switches somewhere as well. Other software... Too long to list


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What90

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Re: Your Setup or Lab

« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2010, 10:42:05 PM »

My core test environment is two machines with 8GB of RAM, one running Windows 2008/Hyper-V and the other running Windows 7 with vmware workstation. Hyper V hosts a variety of Windows servers and domains and Win7 box runs all the client machines. The two boxes were built from parts purchased, as cheaply as possible, on line. I do have lots of disk space on each system for snapshots and to make clones. This allows for testing different approaches, configurations and patch levels.

I have a couple of hubs, switches, routers, WAPs and firewalls which were acquired during refits and updates. Both core machines have four network ports, which allow me to create realistic networks, by mapping the virtual machines to certain NICs. Make for great troubleshooting practice too getting it all working ;-)

I was also able to get a couple of end of life laptops, which I use for packet capturing/IDS and as attack systems from distros.

If you want to save money, Ms have plenty of 120 day trial software copies of their new products and the are a number of .vhd images of pre-built systems. This allows you to play with Windows having to buy any licenses.

Hardware can be picked up in auctions, from talking to friends working in IT or making friends at user groups. It's amazing what companies dump once the kit hits end of life, which is normally at the 3/4 year mark.


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chrisj

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Re: Your Setup or Lab

« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2010, 11:39:11 AM »

Right now, my lab is fairly small. Linux laptop (32bit) with 4 gigs of ram, ~300 gig of drive space. I have virtual box installed, with virtuals XP sp3, XP sp2, Backtrack, and Fedora 12 (not part of the lab, but needed for work).

1 intel celeron with 15gig hd, and 256m ram. It's going to be used for random traffic generation over wifi. has 2 nics so it might get some other lease on life at some point too.

1 linksys wtr54g wireless router.

3 cisco 2900 switches
3 cisco 2500 routers
(and like sil, they don't get turned on because of noise).

In the near future (september / october), I'm hoping to build a desktop box with 16 gigs of ram, and get a netbook.


« Last Edit: July 27, 2010, 02:21:50 PM by chrisj »	Logged

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hayabusa

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Re: Your Setup or Lab

« Reply #4 on: May 19, 2010, 12:26:08 PM »

My lab generally consists of:

1 HP DL380G3 with 16 GB RAM, and ton's of NAS storage (as well as roughly 300GB local storage) running VMWare ESXi for many of my attack lab images.

A couple (3 to 4, depending on what hardware I'm swapping around on any given day) miscellaneous PC's, with VMWare Workstation on them, for some quick build image work, and portability.

3 laptops - each with a minimum of 4 GB RAM, 1 of which is a tablet (comes in handy for presentation work, after a pentest, etc) Have all configured with dual-boot to either BackTrack or other Linux variants.

1 additional 'work' laptop (which I tend to use solely for banging against the other 3 in times of need)

1 oQo v2 handheld PC

Varying Cisco routers and switches, as well as some non-Cisco gear, for connectivity and site-to-site simulation testing, etc.

A handful of different makes and models of wireless routers, running various vendor-installed and/or open-source firmware.

Software-wise, I have a Microsoft Action Pack subscription, so I have all of the varying flavors of MS OS's, SharePoint, and others, SuSE, RedHat, Debian and Ubuntu installations, Solaris, and anything else I need, spur of the moment.


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~ hayabusa ~

"All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved." - Sun Tzu, 'The Art of War'

OSCE, OSCP , GPEN, C|EH

lifestorie1

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Re: Your Setup or Lab

« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2010, 12:35:58 PM »

I am working on setting up a test system now as well and have been running into problems with Vmware (I am pretty sure it is Vmware that is causing the issue). I have a windows 7 64x box that I am running Vmware server on with Backtrack4. I am trying to get my rosewill usb wireless to show up but no matter what I try in the Vmware config I can not get it to show usb devices. I have got it set to auto detect usb and it does not even show any devices as connected. Has anyone got Vmware to show usb correctly when running on Win 7 box??? I messed with this all weekend because I am trying to learn how to use aircrack and other pen testing apps. So if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it. I did research and tried many different things and am out of ideas for now.


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Knb15

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Re: Your Setup or Lab

« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2010, 10:16:29 AM »

About two weeks ago i started setting up a small lab for me to begin tinkering with things.

So far i have two machines, a desktop and a laptop.

The desktop is Win7, with VMWare Server. I've setup XP, Ubuntu, and a Ubuntu Server VMs so far. (The linux server VM is for me to learn to use a different OS server other than MS)

On the laptop, being that it is a 5 year old laptop with not much room for improvement, i have a dual boot of Ubuntu and Backtrack4.

They all access the internet and are operational, but i am still in the process of getting them linked (networked).

So far only one modem, one router (linksys), no switches.

Lots of learning to know how to use it properly, but you gotta start somewhere.

Quote from: Beckman11 on May 24, 2010, 12:35:58 PM

When you are installing your OS using VMWare Server, you have the option specifying whether you want the USB drive installed or not. Did you do that when you were setting it up?


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