Creating the first virtual machine

By installing VMware, we are finished with the first step. Our second step is to create our first virtual machine in our lab. The choice of the operating system depends on you and the way you want to design your lab, and the steps to create a virtual machine are the same for every operating system.

For our blog’s lab, this will vary according to the attack we are practicing. For example, in the Scanning using Nmap - Part 2, we discussed a scanning technique called “Idle Scan”, in this scan we were in need for 3 machines; Attacker, Target, and a Zombie
You can choose to have the 3 machines with Windows OS or Linux or whatever operating system you feel comfort with; you can even make a mix of operating systems; 1 Windows, 1 Linux, 1 Live CD…
It’s all your choice.

Now, to the steps of creating our first machine in our lab.
After installing VMware on your computer, you should see this icon on your desktop



1- Double click this icon to start your “VMware Server Console”



2- The first screen asks you if you want to use the VMware Console that is installed locally, or do you have another console that is installed on another computer and you would like to use it remotely?
Because this is our first and the only VMware Server Console that we will need and use, then we will keep the default choice “Local host” radio button, and click “OK”



3- This is the main window which you will see all the time when you are dealing with your virtual machines.
For creating any new machines, we have to click the “New Virtual machine” link, this will lead you to the “New Virtual machine Wizard”



4- Click “Next >”



5- Now we are going to configure the virtual machine we want to create, there are 2 options here; “Typical” and “Custom”
With “Typical” configuration, you are going to create a machine with the default components (such as a Floppy Disk, Hard Disk, Network Card, 1 Processor…), while with “Custom” configuration you create your machine with additional devices and settings according to your needs (such as number of processors required, size of memory, Type of hard disk IDE or SCSi…)
By the way, all of these settings can be changed later. For example if you created a machine using the “Typical” configuration, you still can change the number of processors, the amount of memory, and the type of hard disk… Everything.
So don’t worry about your choice here.
For our first machine, we will choose the “Typical” radio button, and click “Next >”



6- In the “Select a Guest Operating System” windows, you will be able to choose the operating system that you will install on your virtual machine.
For every operating system vendor you will see a list of the supported virtual machines. For example, in the Linux vendor, you will see Redhat, SuSe, Novell, Mandrake (Mandriva), TurboLinux, Ubuntu, and Others.
Let’s say you are a Gentoo Linux fan, does this mean that you can’t install Gentoo as a virtual machine?
Definitely you can, you can install almost any operating system. For example, Apple Mac is not mentioned here, but you still can choose the “Other” Radio button and start the process of installation (but with little tricks), Open BSD is not mentioned here but again it can be installed with little tricks.

VMware is always updating the list of supported operating systems, and it’s few times when you want to install an operating system and it’s not supported by VMware.

I chose “Windows XP Professional” as the first OS, you choose the virtual machine operating system you prefer and click “Next >”



7- Give a name and a location for your virtual machine, this name will be the folder name of your machine that includes all of the files and settings.



8- Choose the type of the Network you need:
Use bridged networking: If you use bridged networking, the virtual machine is a full participant in the network. It has access to other machines on the network and can be contacted by other machines on the network as if it were a physical computer on the network.
Use network address translation (NAT): If you use NAT, your virtual machine does not have its own IP address on the external network. Instead, a separate private network is set up on the host computer. Your virtual machine gets an address on that network from the VMware virtual DHCP server. The VMware NAT device passes network data between one or more virtual machines and the external network. It identifies incoming data packets intended for each virtual machine and sends them to the correct destination.
Use host-only networking: If you use host-only networking, your virtual machine and the host virtual adapter are connected to a private Ethernet network. Addresses on this network are provided by the VMware DHCP server.

These settings can be changed later as well according to your needs.
For our Lab we’ll select “Use host-only networking”, because you might be connected at the moment to an operational network, and I don’t want you to mess up with this network.
Click “Next >”



9- What is the size of the hard disk of the virtual machine you are creating now? This depends on 2 things:
a- The size of your real hard disk, because it doesn’t make sense if your hard disk is 10GB and you are creating a virtual hard disk with size 8GB
b- What is the virtual machine going to be used for? What are the applications that will be installed on this machine?
For example, if you are just installing a Windows OS, this will be about 2GB maximum, while it might reach 8GB if you are installing Linux, it all depends on the OS and the applications installed.

Decide the size yourself and click “Finish”



10- Here we can see the first empty virtual machine, I say empty because we didn’t install the operating system yet :)
Let’s examine the settings we configured first, and then I will leave you alone with your virtual machine :)
To view or edit the virtual machine settings, click the “Edit virtual machine settings” link



11- Now if you want you can change the memory size, the CD drive, number of processors, add or remove hardware components…





12- If you feel that everything is fine with the settings, then let’s start our OS installation process.
Click “Ok” to go back to the main window “VMware Server Console”.

If you are going to install your operating system from a CD, then put the CD in the CD drive and make sure that you choose the right CD driver in the virtual machine settings



If you are installing from an ISO image, then choose the “Use ISO image” radio button, and click the “Browse…” button to direct it to the ISO file. Click “OK” to go back to the “VMware Server Console”

13- Click the “Start this virtual machine” link to start installing your OS on your first virtual machine



You can follow the same steps before in installing any OS you need.
Have fun :)

Till next article
Take care