To get the most out of this book

To follow the examples in this book, you will need six to seven systems or virtual machines. One system can be your penetration testing system, whereas others can act as your test bed.

Apart from systems or virtualization, you will need the latest VMware image of Kali Linux, which already packs Metasploit by default and contains all the other tools that are required to recreate the examples in this book. However, in some cases, you can use the latest Ubuntu desktop OS with Metasploit installed.

You will also need to install Ubuntu, Windows 7, Windows 10, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, and Metasploitable 2 either on virtual machines or live systems as all these operating systems will serve as the test bed for Metasploit.

In addition, links to all other required tools and vulnerable software are provided in the chapters.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Metasploit-Third-Edition. In case, there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/MasteringMetasploitThirdEdition_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "We can see that we used the post/windows/manage/inject_host module on SESSION 1, and inserted the entry into the target's host file."

A block of code is set as follows:

 irb(main):001:0> 2
=> 2 

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

 msf > openvas_config_list
[+] OpenVAS list of configs 

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Click on the Connect button in the pop-up box to set up a connection."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.