Set Up Metasploitable3 on VirtualBox

This installation was done on virtual box running on Ubuntu 24.04 as the host system.

VirtualBox

A virtualization platform that allows you to create and manage virtual machines on your host system.

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install virtualbox

Vagrant

It automates the creation and provisioning of virtual machines. It simplifies the setup process by handling configurations through the Vagrantfile

On the terminal use the following commands to install it:

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install vagrant

Packer

Is used to build the virtual machine images for Metasploitable 3. It automates the creation of machine images for VirtualBox.

sudo apt install packer

Git

To clone the Metasploitable Repository.

sudo apt install git

Clone the repository to get the setup files and change into the directory:

git clone https://github.com/rapid7/metasploitable3.git 
cd metasploitable3-master

Install the required Vagrant plugin:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-reload

Run the build.sh script to create the VM.

For the Windows 2008 version:

./build.sh windows2008

For the Ubuntu 14.04 version:

./build.sh ubuntu1404

Once the build process completes, use vagrant to start the VM:

vagrant up

To start a specific machine specify its name:

vagrant up win2k8
vagrant up ub1404

List running VMs:

vagrant status

This process take some time, particularly when running vagrant up and when executing the build bash script. It will need some patience.

Installing Metasploitable3 in VirtualBox