Before mingling with Metasploit, we need to have a test lab. The best idea for establishing a test lab is to gather different machines and install different operating systems on them. However, if we only have a single computer, the best idea is to set up a virtual environment.

Virtualization plays a major role in penetration testing today. Due to the high cost of hardware, virtualization plays a cost-effective role in penetration testing. Emulating different operating systems under the host operating system not only saves you cost but also cuts down on electricity and space. Setting up a virtual penetration test lab prevents any modifications on the actual host system and allows us to perform operations in an isolated environment. A virtual network allows network exploitation to run on an isolated network, thus preventing any modifications or the use of network hardware of the host system.

Moreover, the snapshot feature of virtualization helps preserve the state of the virtual machine at a particular interval of time. Hence, snapshots prove to be very helpful, as we can compare or reload a previous state of the operating system while testing a virtual environment without reinstalling the entire software in case the files modify after attack simulation.

Virtualization expects the host system to have enough hardware resources, such as RAM, processing capabilities, drive space, and so on, to run smoothly.

So, let us see how we can create a virtual environment with the Kali operating system (the most favored OS for penetration testing, which contains Metasploit Framework by default).

To create virtual environments, we need virtual emulator software. We can use either of the two most popular ones, VirtualBox and VMware Player. So, let us begin the installation by performing the following steps:

You can run Kali Linux in a Live mode, or you can opt for Graphical install to install it persistently, as shown in the following screenshot: