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hello hak5 users. I'm new to this forum and want to expand my knowledge in the technical field. Anyways I have a tech problem that I need help with, so I downloaded a VM player 15 and every time I start up the kali Linux it gives me a login screen even though I never setup the user/password and I'm wondering if there's like a default user and password??

I'm starting a homelab with what modest means I have available. I've started setting up an i5 Intel NUC with Proxmox so that I can virtualize a few small appliances. I have a really small network of maybe 10 devices on a good day, so I think I can get away with what I want to do. I'm wanting to set it up so that I have a pfSense firewall appliance, and a *nix distro running my DNS DHCP server. Both of these roles are relatively light for a NUC running on an i5 with 16GB of RAM. What I would like to know is if anyone else has travelled this path before me, and if so, how did it turn out?

Linux is by far my favorite operating system, the more I use it the more I dislike windows. I want to switch all my computers over to Linux, but I am also a PC gamer. I could dual boot but restarting just to play a game is a hassle. I've heard about some virtualization tech that allows for hardware pass through. However every article I've read requires more than one monitor, which is fine for my desktop, but I want to do it on my laptop as well. My question is this, is it possible to run a virtual guest that can use my nvidia graphics card, but doesn't require separate monitors for guest and host?

Would it be possible with a hybrid Intel/Nvidia GTX870M video card to have Linux isolated to the Intel video card and Windows use the Nvidia card...one the same monitor? I've seen a similar setup with a the Nvidia going to a external monitor using PCI passthrough in the VM (GTX870M seems to allow passthrough if it's tricked that it's not a virtual OS) The idea would let switching to the VM on a seperate workspace for games and also play with linux on the other workspace, also if 8.1 gets infected, I can load a snapshot vs. lossing my entire laptop; and help protect the BIOS and hardrive. Specs: MSI GT70 2PC VT-d enabled I7-4800 32 GB Ram KVM with Virtual Machine Manager Nividia GeForce GTX870M 3gb vram

So i have searched a bit on the subject and have yet to find a definitive answer, maybe its my lack of google fu or just laziness. Anyway I am starting to get into virtualization specifically a hypervisor. I think I am going the route of Xen as I already have a NAS running UnRAID 5. So I came to the logical conclusion I should just upgrade to UnRAID 6 because it has an option for Xen. Question: When using a hypervisor and setting up a server cluster do the CPU of each server have to match? Or is this only needed if you plan on moving the VM's from one server to another? Thank you in advance for any Information. Also can anyone recommend a good firewall? As I am running an AP\ Firewall (ASUS), and would like to upgrade to something more substantial. I remember there were a few segments about smoothwall, monowall, ect. just wanted to see what the community uses.

Morning all, I've been lucky enough to get myself a spot in a top-notch SOC. While I'm a smart kid, I'm still a long way from being an expert, and one of the steps on the road to becoming a security zen master is a way to learn all the stuff I won't learn on the job. Hence, personal lab is required. I've had some ideas, and some advice from a good friend who knows what he's talking about, and some of his advice was to ask you guys for thoughts. My main goals for a lab are: - Proxy server - Firewall - VPN - Some sort of basic NIDS/NIPS Additional goals, but these are stretch goals: - DHCP - Start learning about AD - Pen testing - Malware analysis My budget isn't huge but I can probably stretch to close to €1,000 at the minute. I'm still working on the details, which is where I hope you can come in with some thoughts. Firstly, hardware. I'm thinking that I can get a shuttle/HTPC box and max out the RAM (16GB or even 32), then virtualize most of the functions with ESXi. Should I plan for more than one physical box or is one enough for now? For OS, I want to do as much with Linux as possible because although I've used it, I'm still pretty green. Are there distros you would recommend for this? Bonus points for the less dependency headaches I have with installing the various software packages. I've only done a very small amount of exploration on applications, enough to suggest that squid might be a good place to start for a proxy but no more than that really. Walkthroughs, guidance, instructions - I know what it's like to be constantly pestered by newbies on really basic questions so if you can point me at resources that will help to save me from asking them, that would be great. I have a couple of books that I'm sure will have some relevant stuff in, but they're not exactly tailored to this specific task - if you know of more that will be a good idea for me to read for this purpose, please say so. Finally, if I also plan on setting up a media server, could this be done on the same machine or should I avoid that? Thanks for your time, fearnothing