In the previous section, we had a brief introduction to the Metasploit framework. In this section, we will learn about the system requirements and various modes of installation of the Metasploit framework.
The easiest way to get your hands on Metasploit is to download the Linux distribution named Backtrack. Backtrack is a Linux-based security distribution that comes with built-in hacker tools. These tools range from information gathering to cyber forensics. The Metasploit framework comes under the network exploitation category. Backtrack includes this within itself to be used just out of the box. Let's see how to do this:
root
:toor
.startx
to load the GUI of the system. The following screenshot shows the look of the GUI of Backtrack 5:Metasploit comes in various flavors. In this section, we shall see how to invoke the Metasploit framework through the command-line console.
root@bt:~# msfconsole
command:msfconsole
. The screenshot describes the version of the framework currently installed on the system. Here, it is Metasploit 4.5./opt/metasploit/msf3
folder under Backtrack 5 R3. As you can see, under this folder we have the msfconsole
executable.Metasploit not only comes with a command-line interface, but it has a very user friendly GUI called Armitage. Armitage is a tool for Metasploit, which is used to visualize targets and intelligently recommends exploits that are based on the target's nature. In this section, we shall see how to launch Armitage in Backtrack.
In the preceding screenshot, the upper half of the screen shows the folder structure of the Metasploit framework. The lower half of the screen shows the console of the framework integrated with the GUI. We shall see how to use it in the upcoming chapters.