To get the most out of this book

To follow and recreate the examples in this book, you will need six to seven systems or virtual machines. One system can be your penetration testing system, whereas the 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 for recreating the examples of this book. However, for 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, and Windows Server 2012 either on virtual machines or live systems as all these operating systems will serve as the test bed for Metasploit.

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

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to copy/pasting of code.