Chapter 1. Installing and Configuring BackTrack
In this chapter, we are going to look at the following with respect to using BackTrack:
Downloading and configuring BackTrack
Installing BackTrack
Updating BackTrack
Validating the interfaces
Customizing Gnome
Creating a virtual machine
Before we focus on downloading, installing and configuring Backtrack, I will provide a brief introduction to Backtrack. The BackTrack distribution is actually a combination of two different distributions merged together. There are many distributions that are available, but BackTrack distribution has been created specifically for professional security and penetration testing. The BackTrack distribution was the result of a merger between the two distributions Whax and Auditor. For a brief on some of the distributions, including Auditor, you can find a presentation that I gave at Black Hat in 2005 via this link:
http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-05/bh-us-05-cardwell.pdf
The name BackTrack comes from the term backtracking, which is the name of a search algorithm.