vdub Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 (edited) I have two 1.8Ghz core2 systems with 2Gb of ram. I wanted to run proxmox on them but they don't support kvm and a single Windows XP vm is literally unusable. Is there anything else these systems can be used for or are they worthless. Also if anyone knows where I can get a pair of CPU's that will support kvm dirt cheap let me know. Edited June 2, 2012 by vdub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 You could configure those systems to be a webserver and MySQL server and use them for practicing your pen-testing skills. That's what I would do with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Get a flux capacitor, some plutonium, build a small reactor and travel back in time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psydT0ne Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Just build them up as a couple of linux boxes or as honeypots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 1.8Ghz core2 systems with 2Gb of ram is WAY more than my old laptop had, and I had XP running on it WITH a Vista VM(all be it very slow vm). Those processors should work fine with virtualization, maybe not proxmox, but definately would work for vmware or virtualbox or any other computer project you can think ok. If they are maxed out at 2GB of ram, well, kind of limited in scope on how much you can throw at it, but if it takes more, put more in it and build a cheap lab or box to attack from another machine or home web server, home media pc, etc. HArdware is hardware, this stuff was state of the art a few years ago, kids these days think you need balls to the wall power to be able to do anything. You would all cry if you had to work in windows 98 with no more than 256 megs of ram(which was max it would use no matter how much you put in the damn thing). Shit, you have enough power in that machine to do most anything today, just have to think about what you want to accomplish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 (edited) The idea in the beginning was to built a virtual network with tons of machines in proxmox. The systems are on a rack headless, for proxmox this would have been perfect. I have pentesting VM's on my main system though virtualbox. So it would almost be a hassle running virtualbox on these systems. Just based on the fact that I can already do that conveniently on a 4Ghz Quad core with 8gb of ram. I wish the software vitalization was better but unfortunately its not. I have ran VM's on older systems before though virtualbox and had great success, I am not sure why the performance on this box is so bad with proxmox. The whole idea was to run these systems headless and clustered as a victim platform. Kind of like a virtual internet. I was going to have a 2k server, a few Windows XP systems on different SP's, Maybe even a webserver or a corporate network with a domain controller. Could have been a fun little playground. The entire setup has its own isolated subnet to so attacks would be more realistic. The problem is when you click the start menu in the only XP VM currently installed it takes like 2 minutes for the start menu to appear. I looked on line to see if I could find some CPU's that where socket 775 and would use the VT-x but the best I could do was $100 per CPU and I am not even sure if they would work on these systems anyway. The FSB of the CPU's currently in use is 800Mhz and the once that support VT-x are 1333Mhz. These systems both had 4Gb of ram last week but since proxmox didn't work out I stole 2Gb out of each system to upgrade the memory in my dads computer. These systems are easily capable of 16Gb of DDR2 each. The memory isn't the real problem at this point. If I could get the vitalization to work better I would upgrade the ram. That's super cheap. I just don't want to drop $200 on CPU's. Its kind of irritating that Intel CPU's are so expensive. I can buy an AMD that supports vitalization for half that price brand new. Edited June 2, 2012 by vdub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 I think the main issue, is 1, ram, and 2, what kind of disk setup you have. If all running off the same HDD, things will always be slow. If you had say 16GB or ram, and multiple disks, things would run as if they were on native hardware, so that would be the issues I see. If you setup a raid disk, or better yet, some solid state drives with a VM on its own dedicated drive, things would perform much better, but with only 2GB ram, one VM plus the host, would be realistic. 2 maybe, but more than that, depending on the OS you virtualize, will just be slow, since swap is usually all disk based, even for ram, most make use of disk for virtual ram. So get a few more drives, put each vm on their own HDD, and if possible, throw some more ram in and you should see improvements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 I think the main issue, is 1, ram, and 2, what kind of disk setup you have. If all running off the same HDD, things will always be slow. If you had say 16GB or ram, and multiple disks, things would run as if they were on native hardware, so that would be the issues I see. If you setup a raid disk, or better yet, some solid state drives with a VM on its own dedicated drive, things would perform much better, but with only 2GB ram, one VM plus the host, would be realistic. 2 maybe, but more than that, depending on the OS you virtualize, will just be slow, since swap is usually all disk based, even for ram, most make use of disk for virtual ram. So get a few more drives, put each vm on their own HDD, and if possible, throw some more ram in and you should see improvements. Unfortunately the case is ultra small form factor. Adding another drive would be difficult but I guess could replace the DVD drive. However, I have not bothered with it because the system can't even support 1 VM the way it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub Posted June 3, 2012 Author Share Posted June 3, 2012 I was just cleaning my shop and found an older Dell XPS with a bad motherboard that needed to be torn down for recycling. It had a Core2 E6700 which supports vitalization and 4Gb of DDR2. I have the CPU in one of the systems now but the BIOS does not support vitalization and the only BIOS update HP has is an exe file. I also upgraded the ram in both systems to 3.5Gb. Once I get the BIOS updated we will see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub Posted June 3, 2012 Author Share Posted June 3, 2012 Well the VM is working great now. I extracted the .bin from the executable and flashed the BIOS with HP's built in flashing program. However, as always proxmox crashes whatever browser I try and use when I close a console window. Both Chrome and Firefox crash. I haven’t been able to find a way to fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 Well the VM is working great now. I extracted the .bin from the executable and flashed the BIOS with HP's built in flashing program. However, as always proxmox crashes whatever browser I try and use when I close a console window. Both Chrome and Firefox crash. I haven’t been able to find a way to fix it. Sounds like a proxmox bug more than anything, but the better you get the upgrades for memory and drive speed or additional drives, the better off you will be. SIngle drive for multipel VM's with low ram, will always be slow, no matter what you are doing, unless all the VM's were win98 machines..lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub Posted June 3, 2012 Author Share Posted June 3, 2012 Sounds like a proxmox bug more than anything, but the better you get the upgrades for memory and drive speed or additional drives, the better off you will be. SIngle drive for multipel VM's with low ram, will always be slow, no matter what you are doing, unless all the VM's were win98 machines..lol I tried loading 98 last night. I could not get it to load, lol. So far with 2 XP machines and 1 2K machine its running good. I understand the hard drive bit but these systems are not meant to be used. This is nothing but en exploitation playground. My next idea is building a virtual router that will put each system on a separate sub-net. Kind of mimic an ISP and somehow randomize it. Each system will get a dynamic IP each time they log on from an entirely different sub-net. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.