best way to run graphical BT4 from a server

[cclymer at gmail.com (cclymer)]

I'm still running vmware for my workstation(fusion) and will likely be
using it on my new server as well (ESXI).  Why?  While the points about
Xen are all very good ones and Id much prefer to support open source
software, at the end of the day I've decided that for my purposes vmware
is just easier to work with.

If anyone provides you with a VM, chances are good that it will have
been made by vmware.  A great example is SANS courses which will often
provide pre-built VMware images with all the tools.  While the other
virtualization tools _can_ open these files as well, my experience was
that it was less reliable, and as you got into more complicated
configurations issues started to arise.

while Xen is extremely powerful, vmware is a lot quicker to get up and
running, and a lot easier to build a virtual lab in.  If I were building
production VMs where performance would be a big concern Id look a lot
harder at Xen.  For a home lab to hack in I care a lot more about ease
of getting up and running, and not spending a lot of time dorking around
with the configs.  Its been a couple of years since I ran Xen, but at
the time it was defintely a _lot_ more work than throwing up any vmware
product ive used.

Virtualbox, as others have said, is to me the open source worlds version
of vmware workstation.  I'd be disinclined to run it on a server,
however if thats what youve been using and have plenty of VMs made in
it, there probably isnt a compelling reason _not_ to use it for your
home lab unless you really intend to have a dozen live VMs up at a time.
For a backtrack image and a single target really any solution is going
to do just fine performance wise.

On Tue, 2009-07-28 at 12:05 +0000, infolookup at gmail.com wrote:
> O have played around with VMware server on Ubuntu 9 recently it I ran into too much issues and overall performance is 
> too slow. I currently run virtual box which seem to work fine, but on some occasions it keep lossing the mouse 
> control or looking up (I did this on my laptop).
>
> All in all I think Xen is more like ESX (build for servers), and virtual box is more like vmware workstation (great 
> for testing and dev but not long term), so I would go with Xen.
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Wood <dninja at gmail.com>
>
> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:13:41 
> To: PaulDotCom Security Weekly Mailing List<pauldotcom at mail.pauldotcom.com>
> Subject: Re: [Pauldotcom] best way to run graphical BT4 from a server
>
>
> 2009/7/28 Dale Stirling <dale at puredistortion.com>:
> > Xen will work for full virtulisation and run Backtrack (haven't tested).
> >
> > Xen delivers it Graphical interface over VNC. though you can set up TLS
> > support for these connections.
>
> I'll be only allowing access to it through a VPN but would probably
> stick TLS on as well if available.
>
> So, half expecting to start a war here, Xen vs VirtualBox for this
> setup? I've personally ruled out vmware server just because it was
> always sluggish compared to VirtualBox and I really didn't like the
> browser thing they came up with.
>
> Robin
>
> > Dale
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Robin Wood <dninja at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 2009/7/27 Nick Drage <nickd at funkyjesus.org>:
> > > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 10:54:50PM +0100, Robin Wood wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I'm building a server that is going to go into a data centre and I
> > > > > want to some kind of virtual machine software, probably either
> > > > > VirtualBox or Xen, and in that I'd like to run BT4. What is my best
> > > > > option to get a full BT4 X session back to my linux desktop?
> > > >
> > > > I can't speak for Xen, although I know someone to ask if no-one here can
> > > > help... which I suspect is extremely unlikely ;)
> > > >
> > > > For Virtualbox, Look at VRDP, which I would expect you can port forward
> > > > over SSH.  The "--vrddport" and "--vrdpaddress" options should be used
> > > > here.
> > >
> > > I like Virtualbox so would rather go with that so I'll have a look at
> > > VRDP and see what it offers.
> > >
> > > > BTW, if you use VMWare Server instead watch your firewalling, IIRC
> > > > it opens several listening ports whether you want it to or not.
> > >
> > > I tried it and didn't like it, didn't seem a patch on VirtualBox last
> > > time I gave it a go.
> > >
> > > Robin
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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