In this chapter, we will discuss the test environment and how we will select the chosen platform. We will discuss the following:
- Introduction to the VMware Workstation
- Explanation of the reasoning behind selecting the platform
- Reviewing and implementing the design of the network
- Developing the structure to support the course and putting everything together
In the first edition of the book, the process was to develop the range in each chapter of the book. In this second edition, the process is to develop the range, at least at the network architecture level, to support the different exercises throughout the book. We will still revisit the design, but the intent is to get the layers of defense to meet the needs of the network designs throughout the book.
The selected platform for the book is the tool from VMware, and one of the early players in the virtualization market. The VMware Workstation provides us with the capability to emulate a number of different complex architectures, and this will allow us to architect the most sophisticated of networks as we build highly secure environments, so we can test the different penetration techniques against them.
At the time of writing this book, the VMware Workstation Version 11 is the current version, and it comes with a number of different features that allow for not only the creation of the complex architectures that we require, but also the capability to clone and build groups of machines for our test environment.
We will not elaborate in great detail about why the decision was made to use VMware Workstation. For an in-depth discussion as well as a comparison of a number of the different virtualization tools that are available, you can refer to Building Virtual Pentesting Labs for Advanced Penetration Testing.
One of the main reasons for using the software is the history of the tool and the fact that it has very mature software and provides us with a robust platform that can provide a number of different architectures; furthermore, based on experience and testing of the tool, we discovered that it can provide a much more robust networking capability than many other tools.