Setting up your work environment

File: misc/status.txt [see below for what this means]

You'll need to work on your own for this, since it involves setting up your own computer. But take advantage of our class Slack workspace to ask questions if you get stuck. Also, if you have a friend in the class, doing this setup together can make it more fun and probably more productive.

Goals

Rubric

1 - Slack post 1 - GitHub survey 1 - .gitignore (as specified below) in your GitHub repository 1 - folder named "misc" in your GitHub repository 1 - file named "misc/status.txt" (as specifed below) in your GitHub repository

Resources mentioned below

Part 1: Slack

Part 2: Kali Linux

(Go straight to the instructions.)

For many of our investigations into practical network security this term, we're going to use tools installed on the Kali distribution of Linux. If you had the spare computer, the time, the right kind of computer, and the inclination, you could install Kali as your computer's operating system. But that's impractical for most of us, so instead, we're going to use Kali installed in a virtual machine (specifically, we'll be using VMWare). To do so, you have a few options, depending on your situation.

  1. Use the computers in Olin 310. Launching Kali via VMWare on the macOS installations in our lab/classroom is easy, and we'll do it occasionally in class.

  2. Install Kali in VMWare on your own computer. This would be ideal for most of you, for your own convenience. However, there are a couple caveats:

    • It's a pretty tedious installation process, partly (but not entirely) because of the complexity of using Carleton's VMWare license to get you free access.
    • If you are using a Mac with an Apple M1 processor, it's even harder.
    • If you are using a Windows machine that does not support virtualization (rare, but some laptops are like that), it won't work.

With those caveats in mind, here are some instructions for using Kali in Olin 310 or installing Kali on VMWare on your own machine. If you find errors or omissions in these instructions, please pass them along to both Jeff and Mike Tie (mtie).

Part 3: git and GitHub

To submit your work for this class and to support collaborative work with your classmates, you will use a git repository to store your code, documentation, presentations, etc.

Here's the short version of your git setup tasks:

Don't know anything or much at all about git? Walk through these optional git startup instructions.

Part 4: what to hand in, and how

All done

That's all for now. Next up: we'll start learning how to use Kali and its many tools.