Install Backtrack 3 in VMware

The process of installing Backtrack 3 Beta to a virtual machine is very similar to installing it to a real hard drive without the complexities of configuring a dual boot (LILO) MBR! I have found running Backtrack as a VMware appliance more useful than dual booting in most testing situations because you can just bounce back and forth between host and guest operating systems.

Open VMware Workstation and choose “new virtual machine”, the wizard will launch.

Choose “typical configuration”, for guest operating system choose “Linux” then “Other Linux 2.6.x Kernel” then click next. On the next screen give your virtual machine a name and continue on. For the network interface choose “bridged networking” if you want to share your host operating system’s interface. Finally choose your disk size, I would give it at least 4GB so you have room to work with but you can get away with far less if you don’t plan on saving anything on the machine. Leave the other values on the screen default and click finish.

Once completed, your new virtual machine will be added to your VMware Workstation favorites for you to access by clicking on the name of the machine. Choose “Edit Virtual Machine Settings” to modify peripheral configuration, I usually give it as much ram as I can spare since Backtrack is running from it while live. Also, if you have any virtual drives or secondary optical drives it seems to work better to specify the drive letter of the physical drive to use.

Making sure that your Backtrack CD is in your physical drive choose “Start Virtual Machine”. When the system boots, quickly hit “F2” to enter setup. Once in setup choose “Boot” and use the minus “-“ key to bring the CD-ROM Drive value to the top. Hit “F10” to save changes, the system should now boot from the CD.

Note:
I have had some problems getting the machine to recognize the CD-ROM initially and found that by closing the VM Ware Workstation, Ejecting and RE-Entering the CD, the trying again usually solved the problem.

Once booted bring up a console and type:
fdisk –l

This should list the Virtual Machines Hard Drive, make note of its drive letter.
Ex. /dev/sda

Type the following sequence of commands to create a partition on the drive:
fdisk /dev/sda //assuming this is your drive
n //to create a new partition
p //define this partition as primary
1 //assign this as the first partition
Enter //accept default first cylinder
Enter //accept default last cylinder
w //write the changes to the disk

We now need to make sure that drive is not mounted by typing “mount”; in my case /dev/sda1 should NOT be listed as a mounted drive. If for some reason your HDD is listed as a mounted drive you can use the “umount” command to unmount it and format it properly.

Now format the drive by typing:
mke2fs /dev/sda1 //formats the first partition of /dev/sda in extension 2 format

Mount the drive by following this sequence of commands:
mkdir /mnt/sda1 //make a directory in /mnt called “sda1”
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 //mount /dev/sda1 in our newly created directory
mount //verify the drive is mounted properly

Start the Backtrack Installer by going to K -> Backtrack -> Backtrack Installer. Once open verify that the fields are filled in as such:

Source: Set automatically
Install Backtrack To: /mnt/sda1 //Or whatever you have named your mounted FS
Write New MBR to: /dev/sda //Your HDD
Installation Method: Real
Restore Original MBR After LILO: Should be unchecked

Select Install, once it is done reboot the system and remove the CD. Once again quickly hit “F2”, this time give the boot priority to the HDD (F10 to save changes). If all goes well you should now have Backtrack 3 Beta installed as a VM Ware Virtual Machine. If you run into any problems just post them here and we will do our best to solve them.