Lab · Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing (legal labs)

Lab: build your isolated hacking lab

Labbeginner· about 2 hours· 4 steps

The brief

Set up a safe place to practise: a Kali attacker VM and a deliberately vulnerable target (Metasploitable 2 or DVWA), both on a VirtualBox host-only network. You prove the two machines can reach each other, prove the target cannot reach the internet, and take a snapshot so you can always roll back.

Why it matters

Every ethical hacker needs a lab where nothing they do can harm a real system or escape onto the internet. Deliberately vulnerable machines are full of holes; putting one online would be a gift to real attackers. Building and verifying isolation is the first practical skill employers expect.

Skills you practise

VirtualBox host-only networking
VM isolation
ip addr and ping
snapshots and safe practice

You need

A computer with at least 8 GB RAM and VirtualBox (free)
A Kali Linux VM (free from kali.org)
A target VM: Metasploitable 2 or a DVWA VM, on a VirtualBox host-only network

What you will have at the end

A working, isolated lab: Kali and a target VM on a host-only network, proven to reach each other but not the internet, with clean snapshots and lab-notes.txt.

How it is marked (rubric, 100 points)

Lab worksKali has a host-only address and can ping the target with 0% loss.	40
Properly isolatedThe target cannot reach the internet; only host-only networking is used.	35
Safe to experimentBoth VMs have a clean snapshot you can roll back to.	15
Documentedlab-notes.txt records addresses, network type and snapshot details.	10

0/4 steps done

Step 1 of 4

Kali is on the host-only network

Kali has an address on the host-only network (192.168.56.x) and no public address.

Attach both VMs to a VirtualBox host-only adapter (the default range is 192.168.56.0/24). Boot Kali and run ip addr. You should see an address like 192.168.56.101 on eth0 or eth1. If you only see 10.0.2.x, that is a NAT adapter with internet access; for an isolated lab remove or disable it.

Run this on your machine, then paste the output below

$ ip addr

Your notes: lab-notes.txt

Write down each command you ran. It goes into your project summary.