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Running Backtrack in VMware

UnknownUnknown
edited March 2012 in Tech & Games
What are the benefits and drawbacks to running Backtrack in a VM? I currently have it installed as the primary OS on my second laptop, but I'd like to install it virtually on this machine as well. I seem to remember someone saying something about the drivers not working correctly or something? I dunno.

Anyway, any feedback would be appreciated before I get installing this.
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  • UnknownUnknown
    edited September 2011
    Bump - anyone got any input? I'm now installing it onto a VM...

    EDIT: I just found one...
    Any virtualisation software can only use USB wireless network cards as physical devices, all other types of wireless card are seen as virtual ethernet devices and can only be seen as a wireless device by the host and not by the guest operating system. So if you want to run BackTrack in VMWare or Virtualbox and have full wireless capabilities, make sure you are using a USB device.
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  • RaggedOldManRaggedOldMan Regular
    edited September 2011
    The wireless issue is a bitch when you're wanting to hack something on your network, but I'm not sure about going across the internet with something like nmap or Metasploit.
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  • UnknownUnknown
    edited September 2011
    Would it be possible to hack other VM's with the VM Backtrack Linux? For example, if I installed Windows XP on another VM, would it be picked up by Backtrack as a machine on the network?
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  • duuudeduuude Regular
    edited September 2011
    No clue bro. Wish I could help out. :(
    I guess you could give it a quick try if it's not too much trouble to set up the XP VM.

    Seems like this would be something Auschwitz would have knowledge of.
    http://www.totse.info/bbs/showthread.php/12473-Backtracm-VMWare-and-Windows-IP-conflict
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  • MiluardoMiluardo Acolyte
    edited September 2011
    I dual-boot backtrack 5 and like it a lot. I'm going to switch to R1 very soon.

    I've only emulated it once and never really liked it, but I "feel" like something's different when it's actually installed.

    BT5 runs fresh from the CD if that makes a difference for you. No install required.

    The only drawbacks of VMware is CPU and RAM usage. Which will be used to run VMware instead of BT. I would take out the middle man if you can.
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  • UnknownUnknown
    edited November 2011
    Well, I went ahead and installed Backtrack 5 as a Virtual Machine using VirtualBox (for some reason, VMware Player fucked up and wouldn't let me install it). It's working fine, and I've had no problems with it. I much prefer having a solid installation though, and for this reason I have chose to keep my old laptop with Backtrack installed on it as the primary OS. However, I still recommend installing BT5 virtually to anybody wanting to get to grips with the tools it has to offer.
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  • MarineBoatMarineBoat Regular
    edited March 2012
    Yeah, I know it's an old thread but here's for anyone who finds it on google or something:
    RaggedOldMan wrote: »
    The wireless issue is a bitch when you're wanting to hack something on your network, but I'm not sure about going across the internet with something like nmap or Metasploit.

    If you have an AMD chip and a compatible mobo (some ASUS and recent Gigabyte models come to mind), you can use IOMMU virtualization to access your WiFi (or most any hardware) in a VM like you do on your desktop.

    If you have an Intel chip you might be able. I know the non K model chips from the 2500 up support this. And the sandy bridge extreme too. The unlocked chips don't.

    Look under the chipset options or advanced options of your BIOS for something like "IOMMU" or "I/O Virtualization" or "AMD-Vi" (VT-d for Intel chips). Any server or workstation from any brand should support this as a standard feature.
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  • DfgDfg Admin
    edited March 2012
    The only problems I foresee is the lack of support for various drivers. But majority of the stuff should work without any issues.
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  • UnknownUnknown
    edited March 2012
    Seeing as someone bumped this recently, I might as well add a few things to the discussion.

    I went ahead and installed BT5 R2 the other day without any problems at all. I'm still using Virtualbox as I mentioned earlier, and the problem with virtual machines not being able to directly interface with the built in hardware is now redundant as I bought myself one of these bad boys;

    a7RtTl.jpg

    It's an Alfa USB Wireless antenna and it fucking rules. Solved all my problems, works with BT straight out of the box and supports packet injection!
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