What you need for this book

All you need for this book is a Linux workstation with a Python 2.7 environment and a working Internet connection. Chapter 1, Setting Up the Lab and Introduction to Python ctypes, will guide you through the installation of the additional Python modules and tools. All of our used tools are freely available from the Internet. The source code of our samples is available from Packt Publishing.

To follow the examples of Chapter 5, Using Python for Virtualization Forensics, you may want to set up a virtualization environment with VMware vSphere. The required software is available from VMware as time-limited trial version without any functional constraints.

While not strictly required, we recommend trying some of the examples of Chapter 6, Using Python for Mobile Forensics, on discarded mobile devices. For your first experiments, please refrain from using personal or business phones that are actually in use.