I needed something small and quiet, easy to move around and travel with... and the Raspberry Pi 5 fits the bill. This is a walkthrough on how to build your own tiny hacking lab.
Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yid0GxVryBs
- Raspberry Pi 5 (im using 16gb version in the video, but 8gb version should work)
- Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64-bit
- Cockpit
- Docker
- Portainer
- Kali in the browser (container)
- Obsidian (container)
- Metasplotable2 (container)
You need to build your SD Card with Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit). It's very easy to do, just follow the video instructions.
You need the Raspberry Pi Imager tool, which can be downloaded from: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
SSH to your Pi and run updates
sudo apt update
Then do the upgrades
sudo apt upgrade
Then install Cockpit
sudo apt install cockpit
Once this is done, test access to Cockpit by accessing it in the browser:
https://YOUR-PI-IP=ADDRESS:9090
Log into Cockpit using the username and password for your Pi.
Install Docker
curl -sSL https://get.docker.com | sh
Adding local user to the docker group
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
Pull the latest Portainer image
docker pull portainer/portainer-ce:latest
Build the Portainer Container
sudo docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name=portainer_app --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:latest
Once this is done, access Portainer in the browser:
https://YOUR-PI-IP=ADDRESS:9000
Usually when I build a number of containers, I like them to have IP Addresses on my host network. This way I can access everything on their own individual IP Address.
Following the video instructions, create the two additional networks you need.
Yours will be different but I'm using 10.96.17.0/24 for my lab network, my gateway is 10.96.17.254. I'm also using this range of addresses for my containers, 10.96.17.128/27.
Follow the video steps to build the following containers:
| Architecture | Container | URL |
|---|---|---|
| Arm64 | Kali Linux | https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-kali-linux/ |
| Amd64 | Metasploitable2 | https://hub.docker.com/r/ocholoko888/metasploitable2-arm64 |
| Amd64 | Obsidian | https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-obsidian/ |
Install OpenVPN on the Kali Container
sudo apt install openvpn
Log into TryHackMe & HackTheBox and download the VPN configiration file.
Then switch directory to the Downloads folder
cd Downloads
Activate VPN's
sudo openvpn NAME-OF-VPN-CONFIG-FILE