REVEN in VMware Workstation

Here are the specific steps to import the pre-installed REVEN's vmdk disk on VMware Workstation.

Before proceeding to the following steps, please make sure you read the general steps to install REVEN in a VM first.

Creating and configuring the VM

1. Enter the New Virtual Machine Wizard and pick the Custom (advanced) configuration mode (vs Standard).
2. Choose the VM Hardware Compatibility according to your needs.
3. In the Guest Operating System Installation, pick the Install Later option.
4. Select Linux OS with kernel 4.x or later 64-bit.
5. Provide a name for the VM.
6. Select a number of processors and cores per processor, so that the total number of cores is at least 8 (eg. 2 processors with 4 cores).
7. Select the networking mode according to your needs.
8. Wizard-recommended I/O controllers should be ok: SCSI, LSI Logic.
9. Virtual disk type: SCSI.
10. Select to use an existing virtual disk to reuse the REVEN disk.
11. Select the REVEN vmdk disk. VMware may propose a conversion step.
12. Configure the VM RAM capacity: see REVEN's requirements.
13. Once the Wizard is complete, go to the VM settings
    1. The REVEN VM must be able to run VMs itself. The nested virtualization setting on Workstation is set on a per-VM basis. In the Hardware/Processor VM settings, activate the Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI option.
    2. Configure the REVEN storage disk.
       1. In the hardware tab, configure a new Hard Disk, SCSI, New Disk.
       2. See REVEN's requirements to set the disk capacity.
       3. The Virtual Device node should be SCSI 0:1 (or if you make other controller / device choices, it must map to /dev/sdb in the system).

Booting it up

Your REVEN VM is now properly configured, you can go back to the general steps for install REVEN in a VM to boot it up.

Optional further steps

Data exchange

In order to exchange data between the host and the REVEN guest, one option is to setup a VMware Host Disk share:

1. Configure the disk share in the Options tab of the VM settings.
2. In the REVEN VM:
   1. Install the open-vm-tools package:

      sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
      

   2. Mount the Host disk share, for example:

      mkdir /home/reven/mnt
      /usr/bin/vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /home/reven/mnt