you need to learn Virtual Machines RIGHT NOW!! (Kali Linux VM, Ubuntu, Windows)

Virtual machines are amazing if you want to become a hacker or learn Linux or get into IT. Or if you’re just a person learning what a virtual machine is, then starting to use them will change your life. And that’s what we’re doing in this guide. If you’re new to virtual machines, we’re going to talk about, hey, what the heck are they and why do you need one? And by the way, if you’re learning hacking, you need one. And then right now, on your computer, on your laptop, we’re going to set up a virtual machine. We’ll walk through every step. It’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s free. So if you’ve always wanted to set up Kali Linux or Ubuntu or Windows on one laptop, you can do that. We’re going to do that now. So let’s go.

This guide covers a lot, from what a virtual machine is to setting one up and going over some really cool features you can do with it.

What is a Virtual Machine?

Real quick, what exactly is a virtual machine? Well, it’s basically this right here: a computer. Well, it thinks it’s a computer. It’s actually a computer inside a computer. Kind of like how we don’t know if we’re in The Matrix right now. I’ll explain, not The Matrix part though.

For example, let’s talk about your computer. Your computer might be a laptop or a desktop, doesn’t really matter. And if you were to bust open this computer—you know, like let’s do it! No, I’m just kidding—if you were to break it in half, open it up, look inside, what would we see? Hardware. Things like the CPU, RAM or memory, storage (I don’t know why I said it like that), GPU, network interface card. Hardware that makes our computer a computer.

Well, not quite. We can’t really use it yet until we install an operating system, right? Like, we need that. For me, I’m using Windows. Hate me for it, I don’t care, I love Windows. What are you using right now? So I have Windows 10, and that allows me to use all the hardware resources and play games and do all kinds of stuff like video editing or making guides like this. So this is a computer, and this might be your computer.

But let’s say one day you get the inkling, the urge, to learn Linux, because everyone should. Like right now. Maybe you want to become a hacker or something, I don’t know. So to learn Linux, you have to start playing with it. So you might think, “Oh, it’s another operating system, so I probably need another set of hardware resources, right? I need to buy another computer.” And on that computer, we would install Linux. There he is.

Now, it’s fine to do this, by the way, if you have a laptop laying around or a Raspberry Pi, go for it. But a different way, and I might say a more magical way—‘cause it is magic, man, VMs are magic—you could put the computer inside your computer.

What? Yes, it’s a real thing. It’s amazing. How are we performing this magic? Virtualization. Virtual machines. It’s legit, it’s awesome.

How Does It Work? The Hypervisor.

But how do we do it? With the hypervisor. Big word, might sound scary, but it’s not. A hypervisor is a fancy word for an application you install on your operating system, like anything else you might install: Google Chrome, Call of Duty, whatever it is.

There are a few different players out there, but the one I love the most, just because it’s free—like anyone can download this whether it’s Mac, Linux, or Windows—and you get like all the features, it’s amazing, it’s called VirtualBox. And again, it’s just an application you install. I’ll show you how to do it here in a moment, and it’s super fast, super quick and simple.

And the hypervisor’s job is legit just to create a bunch of little computers inside your computer. Things like this. And it doesn’t have to be Linux; it could be Windows. You could have Windows inside Windows. You could have Mac inside Windows, Windows on Linux, Windows on Mac. And you can have more than one.

Now again, I want to show you how to do this step-by-step; it’s so easy. But let me tell you one thing. What’s amazing about this is this computer right here, this little fake computer, basically he thinks he’s a real boy. He thinks he’s the actual computer. He thinks he’s the laptop, even though he’s not. He’s in The Matrix.

What the hypervisor basically does—and it’s again, this is magic I’m talking about here—he’ll basically create fake or virtual (I kind of use those words interchangeably) fake hardware components, like the CPU, the RAM, GPU (my writing is getting worse and worse, it’s okay), storage. And he actually does this by borrowing from the operating system. So he says, “Hey, can I use some of this CPU for this new little computer here? Can I use some of your RAM?” Of course, since you’re the one doing it, he says, “Okay.” And he creates this little fake, virtual computer, and we install our operating system on there.

And again, to that computer, he thinks, “Wow, I’m the only real computer here, this is amazing!” But he’s not.

Now, this technology has been around for a minute, but it doesn’t make it any less amazing. Like if you’re just now learning about this, it’s kind of mind-blowing, isn’t it? And even if you do know about it, it’s still mind-blowing. Like just explaining this now, I get excited. Can’t you tell? It’s not just the coffee, I promise.

But yeah, what we’re doing here, virtualization, has been around for a while, and it’s been used in big companies for a while too. Now, what you’re seeing here, this virtualization, it’s amazing because anyone can do it. You have a laptop, you have a desktop, you have your mom’s computer, whatever it is, you can install a virtual machine.

But it’s also important to know that as you go further into it, this isn’t the only way to use a hypervisor. In fact, this hypervisor right here is referred to as a Type 2 hypervisor, which kind of tells us there’s a Type 1. And what is that? Well, I’ll tell you right now.

Type 1 vs. Type 2 Hypervisors

Like what we’re seeing here, a Type 2 hypervisor is installed on an operating system that you already have, like Windows or Linux or Mac. This is referred to as our host operating system or our host OS. When we install our Type 2 hypervisor and he creates virtual machines, these VMs are called our guest OS’s. Essentially, the host OS is allowing the guest OS to use his resources, like you would have a guest use your resources in your house. Except this guest thinks he’s living there and he owns the house. It’s kind of weird.

Now, the other option, a Type 1 hypervisor, is what you’ll see in companies and enterprises. And if you come to my house, I have some too. You might have some as well. A Type 1 hypervisor will not be installed on top of an already existing operating system like Windows. So let me erase Windows out of here (don’t get too excited). The hypervisor will actually be installed straight onto the hardware. And in this case, it wouldn’t be something like VirtualBox; it would be something like VMware. VMware’s ESXi is what I have running in my house.

A Type 1 hypervisor like this can be installed on any computer, like your laptop, if you just erased Windows or Linux (whatever you have) and installed ESXi. It would work. It’s awesome, try it. But more often and typically in the real world, you’ll see it installed in one of those big servers: a Dell server, an HP server.

But honestly, the Type 1 hypervisor and the Type 2 hypervisor, they do the same thing: they make virtual machines. They carve out hardware resources and make virtual machines. The main difference with Type 2 is that it has to ask the host operating system for resources; it has to share it with them. Whereas the hypervisor over here, Type 1, he controls the show. He’s got full god-like control of all the hardware resources. So keep that in mind as you go forth in IT.

Why Use a Virtual Machine?

But let’s get to actually making this happen on your computer now. Before I show you how to set up a virtual machine, let’s talk about why. Why would you want to do this? Why would you not? But let me give you some reasons. My top three, actually. Real quick, here we go.

Number one: You want to learn hacking. Using a virtual machine to perform your hacking duties is the safest and most secure way to do this. In fact, if you want to use TryHackMe or Hack The Box—fantastic ways to learn hacking—this is their recommended way. Get a virtual machine and connect to them via VPN. We’ll cover that here in a moment.

Two: You just want to learn different operating systems. Best way to do it.

And three: You want to break stuff. Now when I say “break stuff,” I really mean it. When you use a virtual machine, you can do whatever you want to it. You can change all the settings, break it, mess it up. ‘Cause guess what? It doesn’t matter. You can just delete it and build a new one. It doesn’t affect your main operating system, your main host OS. So that means it’s the best place to try things, the best place to experiment.

Setting Up a Virtual Machine: What You Need

So here we go. Time to make some magic happen. I’m going to set up a virtual machine, a computer inside a computer, on this laptop. Now you can do this. It’s not too difficult, and it’s completely free. So here we go. Let’s get this set up and start going.

Okay, so real quick, what do you actually need to do this? Well, first, you need a computer. Right? A real one, not a virtual one. Can’t be a Matrix computer. Now, it doesn’t have to be a core, crazy computer. If you bought your computer within the last 10 years, you should be okay for the CPU. And as far as like RAM, I would say 4 GB or more. Any less and you might have some trouble. Why? Well, because again, we’re sharing resources with a new computer. Your computer right now is already using those resources. Does it have some to spare? Kind of like your house: do you have an extra room for a guest? If you don’t, it’s going to be straining. It’s going to be hard. I’m not sure why I made a list. That’s pretty much all you need. We’re good.

Enabling Virtualization (For 64-bit OS)

Now, before you try to set up a virtual machine on this laptop or your laptop, there’s one thing you got to know. Most operating systems come in two flavors: 32-bit or 64-bit. So for example, I’m going to install Kali Linux as a virtual machine on my laptop. I have the option to use a 32-bit version or a 64-bit version. If you want to use a 64-bit operating system, there’s one thing you have to do in the BIOS of your computer. You basically have to enable hardware virtualization support for your CPU. I’ll walk you through that right now. But if you don’t care about 64-bit, if you’re going to go 32-bit, continue. Just make sure to download 32-bit images. To support both, go ahead and continue with this next step.

Here’s what you do. I’m going to restart my computer here. As it’s restarting, I’m going to keep pressing F12. And what this will do is get me into my BIOS. It’s the operating system before your operating system. When your computer boots for you, it may be F12, F8, F10; you’ll see it when it comes up. What we’re going to do here is actually adjust these settings on your computer. Now I just missed mine, so I have to do it again. You have to kind of press it fast for your faster computers. Got it.

Okay, so here I’m going to enter setup. This will get us into your BIOS settings. This looks a little scary if you’ve never done this before, I totally understand. And all we’re going to do is change one setting. We’re going to mosey on over to Advanced > CPU Configuration, and we’re going to look for something called “Intel VMX Virtualization Technology.” You want that. You want that enabled. Now, your menu may be a bit different from mine, but just look for that setting: CPU configuration and Intel VMX. Now, if you have an AMD CPU, the process will be pretty much the same, except you’re looking for a technology called “AMD-V.” Enable that.

So I’ll enable mine by hitting the space bar. Hit Escape, and then mosey on over to Save and Exit, and Yes, and reset. And I’m ready to go.

Downloading an Operating System (OS Image)

Now, real quick, before you do anything, do this right now. Whatever operating system you want to start playing with—whether it’s Kali Linux, Ubuntu, Windows, or whatever—start downloading it right now. These file sizes can be pretty large, and it might take a bit, so might as well start now.

So I’m going to go out to the interwebs, the internet, search for Kali Linux, going to go download it, and I’m going to download the Kali Linux 64-bit installer. Now notice it is 4 gigs. It includes everything, all the cool applications you want to use to hack things. So it might take a bit. I’m going to go and download mine now. I’ve got gigabit internet, so it’s going to take about 3 minutes.

I’m also going to go download the latest version of Ubuntu. I’m going to search Ubuntu, click on download right here from the Google search. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re going to track me. Ubuntu Desktop is what I want, and click on download.

Now, real quick, notice the type of file I’m downloading. It’s an ISO file. Do ISO? Most of the time, this is what you want to look for. It’s installation media. It’s how you install these operating systems, kind of like how we used to install things via CDs, which we don’t really do anymore, so it’s hard to make that comparison.

Downloading and Installing VirtualBox

But while those are downloading, we’re going to download our hypervisor next. I mentioned before, we’re going to be using a hypervisor called VirtualBox, made by Oracle, completely free. And I love free. So I’m going to click on Downloads here, scroll down here. I’ve got a few options: Windows, OS X (which is Mac), Linux, or Solaris. Now here I’m demoing Windows; keep in mind it should be pretty similar across all the different OS’s. So click on Windows, and it’s downloading.

Coffee break.

My VirtualBox download is ready. I’m going to click on it, and it’s going to start installing. Pretty typical installer package. Just click on Next, accept everything like you believe it, don’t change a single thing, just click on Next and Yes. It’s going to do some stuff. Just click on Yes and Install, Yes. And if you see that message that it was successful, then you’re golden. Click on Finish, and it will launch VirtualBox for you right now. Yes, I’m so excited.

Now I told you, installing a hypervisor is just like installing an application. It’s running just like one. It’s not too scary or intimidating. And we’re almost there. So let’s get this party started.

Installing the Extension Pack

Now, one more thing we have to do before we create our virtual machine. VirtualBox, for some reason, needs an extension pack to be able to use some other features, like connecting USB devices and stuff. And you might want that. So we’re going to get back to our web browser, and right where we downloaded VirtualBox, if you scroll down just a bit, we’ll see right here: “VirtualBox Extension Pack, All supported platforms.” Go ahead and download that right now.

And done. And actually just go ahead and click on that, and we’ll start the installation. Yep, let’s install that sucker right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. And boom.

Creating Your First Virtual Machine

Now we’re finally ready. From here it says, “Hey, welcome.” We’re going to click on New. So click on that weird-looking icon there: New.

Now, because I’m running a hacking OS, Kali Linux, I like to name mine… Voldemort. Oh, I’m sorry, “He Who Must Not Be Named.” Don’t want to offend anyone. The machine folder is where your virtual machine will live. I’ll leave mine as default; that’s fine. Type: this will be a Linux machine. You have other options like macOS and Microsoft Windows. And then I’ll choose my version. Now, they’re not going to have Kali Linux listed in here, but if I choose Ubuntu 64-bit, that’ll do the job. They’re both based on Debian. I’ll click on Next.

Now here’s where you get to decide how much of your computer’s resources you’re carving out to give to this new computer. First is the memory. And you want to be careful with this. If you give this computer too much memory, you’re going to have a hard time. Give your guest just enough. Just give them the one room. Now, my laptop has 16 gigs of memory, so I can afford to give him a bit extra.

Now, a quick way to determine how much you can give your computer is to look at Task Manager. So if I right-click my taskbar down here and click on Task Manager, and click on Performance, I can see how much CPU and memory I’m using. Now you’ll want to check this with all your regular apps open so you can get a good baseline for how much you can give your virtual machine here. So I’m pretty good. I’m going to give mine a healthy 2 gigs of RAM. That’ll be 2048 megabytes. And I’ll click on Next.

Here we’re creating the hard drive for our new computer, which is kind of crazy and cool. We have a few options, but if this is your first time ever doing this, the one default is fine: “Create a virtual hard disk now.” By default, it’s going to be 10 gigs in size, so make sure you have some space available on your hard drive. We click on Create.

And then we have different types we can choose from. Again, going with default is probably the best option for you right now. Now, if you’re just starting out, a VDI is specific to VirtualBox. If you’re going to use other hypervisors like VMware’s Workstation, using another file type will allow interoperability. But VDI is fine if you’re just going to be testing this out with VirtualBox, which again is more than enough. So we’ll click on Next.

Now this is pretty freaking cool right here. So for your hard disk size, we are going to say to the operating system—to our new computer—it’s going to be 10 gigs. But the hypervisor is smart, and it won’t actually take up 10 gigs on your hard drive unless it needs to. It will dynamically adjust its size as long as you have the “Dynamically allocated” option selected. You can go with the “Fixed size” option, which does increase your performance a bit, but I always choose “Dynamically allocated,” and it works great. So click on Next.

And then our last thing with our hard drive, our storage, is we choose where it’s going to live. So again, you’re going to put this somewhere where it actually has space available, and then choose your size. I’m going to bump mine up to about 20 gigs. There we go. And by the way, most of these settings you can go back and change, so don’t fret too much about this. So I’ll click Create.

And bam! Like, we’re almost done. Not quite yet, but we’re almost there.

Tweaking VM Settings (CPU Allocation)

I’m going to show you a couple things real quick. Go ahead and click your virtual machine and click on Settings. There are a lot of options, and you can go crazy and geek out. But for now, you don’t have to change much. In fact, you don’t have to change anything if you don’t want to. But there is one thing I want to change from the get-go that I know will have the biggest bang on my performance, and that’s the number of CPUs I give my new computer.

I’m going to go one step down and go to System, and from here I’ll click on Processor, the tab right here. Most of us have multi-core CPUs, and we can carve out some of those CPUs to give to our new computer. Now, one normally isn’t that great, so I’ll bump it up. Just a few. Four is a good, solid number. Almost overkill. Never try to go over half; get in the danger zone there. So always try to stay below that, especially if you’re going to have more than one virtual machine, which you can do—which we are going to do. And that’s all I’ll change for now. I’ll click OK.

Installing the Operating System

And now all that’s left to do is to start up our virtual machine. I’ll click on my little arrow right here and click on Start.

Now, first thing it says is, “Hey, we need a startup disc.” ‘Cause right now we don’t have any operating system on this virtual machine. We’ve got the hardware, but it’s blank. No OS. So it’s basically going, “Hey, where’s my, um, install disc? What are we doing here today?” So we’re going to go find it. I’ll click that little folder icon right there, and it’ll be one of our ISOs that we just downloaded. I got Kali Linux and Ubuntu. I’m going to go Kali first. So click on Add, go to my Downloads folder, and click on Kali Linux, and click Open, and Choose. And that’s it. I’ll click on Start, and it will start.

Now, one thing real quick. I just clicked inside this virtual machine, and what it will do is it will allow me to use my mouse and my keyboard for my computer inside the VM. But what can happen is it can also be kind of hard to get out of it. So they give you a little host key option to get out of there, kind of like an abort button. By default, it’s going to be the Right Control key. So if you have your Left Control on your keyboard, it’ll be the Right Control that you’ll hit to get your mouse back and be able to go to your base or host operating system. And that’s fine.

So we’ll go and let it capture my movements here, and what I’m going to do now is do a graphical install for Kali Linux. Hit Enter. And we’re off to the races.

Now, with whatever operating system you install, it will be slightly different, but they’re all pretty much the same. You’re going to go through, select your languages, and click on Continue. I’m in US, yes, American English is good; it’s what I speak. So right now it’s detecting all the hardware that my hypervisor brought up—for all the fake hardware. It’s kind of cool. Going to name it, which again will be Voldemort. Click on Continue. I’ll skip this, my user account, just name it, NetworkChuck, continue. Username is good too, and my password, for continue. Time zone, all that jazz. Just basic stuff you can walk through pretty quickly.

Now again, when in doubt, default. By default we have “Guided - use entire disk.” What it’s going to do is format the entire disk it has access to. Now, don’t freak out. It’s not going to destroy your host operating system’s disk. No, no, no. It’s just the disk we’ve given access to this computer. It’s that 20-gig disk. And yeah, it’s going to overwrite that entire disk, and that’s fine. That’s what we want. So I’ll click on Continue, and Continue, and Continue, and Continue. And it’s going to ask you one more time, “Are you sure you want to do this?” ‘Cause you are going to overwrite the entire disk, which is fine. It’s a fake, virtual disk we created just for him. I’ll click on Continue, and it’s installing.

Coffee break.

Now I say coffee break because this can take a bit of time depending on what you’re installing. So please, go take a coffee break. NetworkChuck coffee, go for it.

Now, often as you go through the installation, you’ll have more options: what desktop environment you want to have, and such. Again, default is best. Click on Continue, and it will keep going.

And yet again, more stuff. “Do I want to install the GRUB boot loader?” Yes, I do. We’re not going to cover that right now. And then choose your hard disk you want that installed on. The one, only one I have here. And we’re almost there, I believe. Getting closer.

And it’s done. Okay, it’s good. I’m going to click Continue, and it’s going to restart and do all its stuff. Right here it comes. And I’m going to log in. And boom. Just like that. A virtual machine. A computer inside a computer. He thinks he’s the only one using the hardware on this laptop. He’s not. He doesn’t know. And I don’t care if he doesn’t know.

This is the way you want to hack. This is the way you want to learn Linux. It’s amazing.

Why This is a Game-Changer

Now, real quick, three reasons why this is absolutely killer and game-changing and awesome for you.

First, this is a Linux operating system, a Kali Linux operating system with a ton of hacking tools built in, and I’m running it on a Windows laptop. Cool enough by itself.

But one of the other reasons I love this is that this computer, this Kali Linux virtual machine, it’s isolated. Whatever I do on this guy will not affect my operating system here, my Windows operating system. Which is really good if you are hacking, right? Ethically. So for example, if you’re accessing TryHackMe’s network to access their stuff, or Hack The Box, you’re connecting to a network that may have other people on that same network who are also trying to hack. I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot safer connecting to a hacking network if I’m using an isolated computer that can’t affect everything else I’m doing. This is why TryHackMe and Hack The Box recommend virtual machines like this.

Cool VM Features: Pause, Save State, Snapshots

Now, a couple more killer things you can do with VirtualBox and your virtual machines, your virtual computer, your fake computer. Check this out.

I’m going to pull up VirtualBox once more, and we can see that our virtual machine’s running. Voldemort’s running. If I right-click this guy, I have a few options here. Of course, I got Settings. The cool stuff is right here in the middle. I can pause this virtual machine. Let’s do it. Let’s pause him. It’s like you’re pausing a game. It’s freaking nuts. You’re kind of just freezing your computer. Kind of neat. The idea here is that whatever you’re doing will pause, and it’ll use less resources if you want to do something else at the moment. And then I’ll right-click him and click on Pause to resume, pick up right where I left off. That’s freaking sick, right? That’s amazing.

Again, let’s right-click our Voldemort here. I can also reset him. We’ll just… you know, kind of like restart, but it’ll just kind of like you’re unplugging, re-plugging. I can also close my virtual machine with a few cool options here. One is saving the state. Let me show you real quick.

Let me open up something here. I’ll jump into a command prompt, go into Nano, and start typing something. That I’m like, “Huh, I’m tired, I want to go to bed.” I’m just going to… I’m just going to save this guy’s state. Click on Close > Save the state. And then I’ll close VirtualBox. Done. Shut down, go to bed, whatever. Come back, open up VirtualBox, and then I’ll just click on Start. And let’s see what happens. Restore my virtual machine where we freaking left off. That’s amazing, right? Oh my gosh.

Okay, anyways, I’m getting too hyped on virtual machines. Can you be too hyped on it? I don’t think so. I’m okay.

And then one more thing: if I right-click Voldemort, go to Close, I can do a normal shut down, or I can just power them off, which is like unplugging the virtual machine’s power cord. And of course, you can go to, “Ah, what happened? I don’t know.” Great time to reset it. Let’s just reset. Bam. Yeah, let’s reset him. Get a little preview box right there. That’s super cool. That’s going to get me back in. I don’t know what happened there. Okay, we’re back. And he’s normal. And of course, you can shut him down like you normally would and do all your stuff in Kali Linux.

Some other cool stuff that you can’t do with your normal computer. Right now I’m going to shut him down real quick. Shut down, guy. He’s powered off. He’s gone. If I right-click him when he’s powered off, I have some cool options here, like Clone. What do you think clone does? Wild guess. Again, when in doubt, default. Next. Full clone. It’s making a copy of my virtual machine. How cool is that? So I can fire up one, really go in there and mess some things up, and then I’ve got another one. I got a backup. That’s pretty cool.

Now I’m starting him up again once more. Let me give you a scenario. Let’s say you’re about to change something, about to install something new, maybe an update, or you’re about to do something crazy. I don’t know, whatever it is. It might break what you’re doing, and you’re getting nervous. You could clone your machine; that’s fine, a bit heavy. Or, you can take a snapshot. Take a little picture, freeze frame, so then you can go back to it if things break.

I’m going to click the little dialogue box right here next to Voldemort and go to Snapshots. I can take a snapshot, take a picture of his current state, label it “Before I break him,” click OK. And boom, it saved that state.

So let’s do this real quick. I’m going to create a file on the desktop—or a folder on the desktop. Bam. There it is. That’s the state of him right now. If for whatever reason that folder murdered me, I can say, “Oh, he’s broken.” Let me shut him down, put him in timeout, go to my Snapshot here, and click on Restore. And now I want to create a snapshot of what he is currently? He’s broken. Let’s just restore him to what he was before. And he should be good.

I’m going to click on his dialog box, go back to Details, and jump in there. Let’s click on Start. Man, virtualization is… it’s pure magic. And there it is. That folder on my desktop is gone. That state’s been restored.

So you see what I mean? Like, virtual machines are like playing a video game. They’re magic. You can play with new operating systems, make all kinds of crazy changes, do just do crazy things. This could be Windows, Linux, Mac, and it doesn’t affect your host operating system. It’s crazy.

Advanced Settings & Isolation

Now this has been a long guide, but I just can’t help myself. Let me show you a few more things real quick.

I’m going to jump into Voldemort and click on his—or right-click him—and click on Settings. A few more things I would change here real quick. Under General and then Advanced: shared clipboard. If you want to copy and paste between your host machine and your guest OS, you can do that. You can share the clipboard. Click on Host to Guest, Guest to Host, Bi-directional. Again, keeping in mind, you got to be careful. Whatever you open to being shared between your host machine and your guest machine means some of that security goes away. So if you want true isolation, keep the stuff off. But for convenience, hey, go bi-directional. That’s awesome. Drag and drop? Yeah, let’s do that bi-directional. It’s pretty freaking slick.

Right now, something else. This is the last thing I’ll show you. If you go down to Network, this is one of the killer settings and things and features about virtual machines. This virtual machine right now is connected to the internet; it has access to stuff. But right now it’s on its own little network. It’s using NAT (Network Address Translation). But essentially what that means with this setting is that it’s not on my network right now, my home network. If you were to scan my network—like what you might do as a hacker using Nmap—you wouldn’t discover this guy. And if my little machine here were to become compromised and a hacker got access to it, if they were to scan its network, it wouldn’t discover my home network.

So if I jump into my Kali box right here and I open up a command prompt, let me just check his IP address. Yeah, it’s on the 10.0.2.x network. That’s not my home network.

Now, of course, you can change this behavior if you want it to have a regular IP address on your home network, if that’s what you really want. You can change that to a Bridged Adapter, and it will change that behavior.

So now let me see if it made the change. Probably have to reboot. Let me just reboot it. And now let’s check the IP address. Yes, it’s on my home network now. So you have options. But again, more convenience comes at a cost: your security.

But getting back into Voldemort, if I go to his settings once more, you can have more convenience, like going to Shared Folders. You can share a folder between your host machine and your guest machine, and you can share files back and forth.

But my advice: if you’re learning hacking or messing around with Linux or whatever you’re doing, keep your machine as isolated as possible. You can even run its own VPN client just on that virtual machine, which basically means your host machine could be, you know, where you are—like, let’s say mine is where I live, Dallas, Texas—but my guest OS, my virtual machine, could be in France, due to my VPN settings. So that’s pretty secure: the PC is isolated, and it’s connecting to a separate network somewhere else.

Running Multiple VMs

Oh, look at that. While you were on a coffee break, I installed Ubuntu. So right now I’m running Kali Linux, Ubuntu, and of course my Windows host OS, all on one computer. That’s amazing, right? I… that is magical.

Conclusion

Now, this was just a taste of virtualization technology. Now if you’re still watching this… guide, congrats, you just learned a ton about virtualization, virtual machines. And if you followed along, you deployed some virtual machines. That’s awesome.

What you just learned is something that we in IT use all the time. It’s an essential skill, whether you want to become a hacker or a system admin or a cloud engineer. Really anything, any area of IT, requires this knowledge. So with this, you’re one step closer to whatever your goal is. And shoot, even if you don’t want to become an IT person, just knowing this is so cool for regular life.

But anyways, that’s virtualization. I love it. And if you love it too… well, let me know what you thought of this guide. Do you have any tips for virtualization or virtual machines that I did not mention here? Comment below.

Now, just so you know, virtual machines or VMs are not the only way to accomplish what we’re trying to do: have isolated machines, computers, to do cool things. We could also do that with Docker. We can do that with WSL2. You’re probably thinking, “Dang, what is that?” Great question. I got some guides up here that you can check out. And just so you know, learning virtualization, what a VM is, is a prerequisite before stepping into those worlds. And it’s a big, cool, awesome world.

Well guys, that’s all I got. Woo! Virtual machines are amazing. How many times can I say that until you get it? Hopefully you get it by now.

So yeah, that’s all I got.