Metasploit components and environment configuration

The Metasploit Framework has various component categories based on their role in the penetration testing phases. Each of the component categories has various modules and plugins that we can use in the exploitation process.

The following sections will provide a detailed understanding of what each component category is responsible for.

Auxiliaries

You have learned so far that Metasploit is a complete penetration testing framework and not just a tool. When we call it a framework, it means that it consists of many useful tools and utilities. Auxiliary modules in the Metasploit Framework are nothing but small pieces of code that are meant to perform a specific task (in the scope of our penetration testing life cycle). For example, you might need to perform a simple task of verifying whether a certificate of a particular server has expired or not, or you might want to scan your subnet and check whether any of the FTP servers allow...