Week 1 - Creating a DVL VM

Okay guys...as a part of my first lab in my advanced hacking class I have to "build" or "setup" and VM running DVL (Damn Vulnerable Linux).  I've come to learn that DVL is essentially a Linux distro that's geared towards computer security students to demonstrate some of the vulnerabilities associated with the Linux OS.

I will work through the installation and setup step-by-step.  It's very easy and all you'll require ahead of time is a copy of VMWare Workstation (I'm using 7.0.1) and a .iso of DVL (I'm using version 1.5). 

Here we go:

-Open VMWare Workstation
-Click "New Virtual Machine"
-Ensure "Typical" Installation is selected and click "Next"
-Ensure "Installer Disc Image File (.iso) is selected and click "Browse"
-Navigate to the .iso file for DVL, highlight it, click "Open", then click "Next"
-Ensure "Linux" is selected as the Guest Operating System
-Select "Other Linux 2.6.x Kernel" as the Version and click "Next"
-Name your VM and change the location of the VM configuration files if you wish - click "Next"
-Change the Max. Disk Size to 20GB and ensure the virtual disk is stored as a single file - click "Next"
-Check the box "Power on the VM after creation" and click "Finish"
-After the VM gets to the "boot: " prompt, press "Enter"

At this point your VM should boot and you should be looking at a screen that looks similar to this:

There you have it! You're DVL VM is ready for you to login (root/toor) and you're off to the races. You can issue the command "startx" when you are at the "bt ~ $" prompt to boot the GUI version of the OS.

Quick and painless - please comment if you found this helpful.