Qubes OS Installation issue with Virtual Box

1.    I have a habit of running most of the Operating systems in Virtual Environment(mostly Virtual Box) that I keep experimenting with.Till date I have had no issues running anyone of them inside Virtual Box including Ubuntu,Fedora ,Mint,BackBox , BackTrack ,Metasploit , Windows , Pentoo ,Knoppix ,Chromium OS, Arch Linux , Open Suse, Red Hat etc....in fact the list goes on.But whilst exploring the QUBES OS today...I found the Virtual Box unable to run it...and always getting the following screens :

2.   Qubes is a security-oriented operating system (OS) and an extract from the installation advise is shown below : 

Extract produced below :

Note: We don’t recommend installing Qubes in a virtual machine! It will likely not work. Please don’t send emails asking about it. You can, however, install it on an external USB hard drive and run from it, at least for testing.

3.  But further to my surprise,I found via Google searches that this OS works fine with VMWare workstation player.And after I tried it,I found it works perfectly fine as I show it in my next post.I though couldn't find a resolve or any kind of solution to run it fine on the Virtual Box but then till the time VMware workstation performs the task,I am ok :-)

VMware Workstation Player installation @UBUNTU 16.04 LTS

 1.    VMware Workstation Player is a virtualization software package for x64 computers running Microsoft Windows or Linux, supplied free of charge by VMware, Inc. VMware Player can run existing virtual appliances and create its own virtual machines and uses the same virtualization core as VMware Workstation, a similar program with more features, but not free of charge. VMware Player is available for personal non-commercial use, or for distribution or other use by written agreement. VMware, Inc. does not formally support Player, but there is an active community website for discussing and resolving issues, and a knowledge base.

2.   This post brings out few steps with screenshots and source details of download for the VMWare workstation version for Linux. The bundle package can be downloaded at https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/12_0

3.   The file I downloaded from the above link is 

VMware-Player-12.1.1-3770994.x86_64.bundle

4.   Few steps to install this file further involves going to the terminal and executing the following commands :

chmod a+x VMware-Player-12.1.1-3770994.x86_64.bundle

the next step

sudo ./VMware-Player-12.1.1-3770994.x86_64.bundle

 this is followed with the following gui shots :

Ready to roll..........

Virtual Machines : Escape vs Introspection

1.   For last few years playing inside a VM ,I always used to wonder if it actually that safe surfing anything inside a VM...and that hardly anything gets in touch with the Host machine while we work with applications inside.Then I heard of two relative terms that are : Virtual Machine Escape vs Virtual Machine Introspection

2.  New to me but pretty old from point of view of existence....these are briefly explained below :

Virtual Machine Escape

Normally virtual machines are encapsulated, isolated environments. The operating systems running inside the virtual machine shouldn't know that they are virtualized, and there should be no way to break out of the virtual machine and interact with the parent hyper visor  The process of breaking out and interacting with the hyper visor is called a “VM escape.” Since the hyper visor controls the execution of all of the virtual machines an attacker that can gain access to the hyper visor can then gain control over every other virtual machine running on the host. Because the hyper visor is between the physical hardware and the guest operating system an attacker will then be able to circumvent security controls in place on the virtual machine.(Source : http://lonesysadmin.net)

Virtual Machine Introspection

Although virtualization isn’t new, the recent development of x86 virtualization products has revived interest in the virtualization market. This has led to the evolution of Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI) techniques and tools to monitor VM behavior. VMI tools inspect a VM from the outside to assess what’s happening on the inside.This makes it possible for security tools—such as virus scanners and intrusion detection system to observe and respond to VM events from a “safe” location outside the monitored machine. Depth of information is the fundamental benefit behind a concept called Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI). Its use within virtualized environments is absolutely crucial to effective risk mitigation at scale.(Source : |http://www.securityweek.com/vm-introspection-know-your-virtual-environment-inside-and-out)

So the basic difference is I think the route,in case of the former the need is to contact the hypervisor from inside and the latter shows the way out to get to know whats happening inside from outside perspective.....

How to find windows product key : Product Key Decryptor

1.   Have you ever found yourself in a position when a genuine Windows OS key is required!!!!This tool will be useful if you have ever lost your product CD Key or you have to reinstall the product again.The nae of the product is Product Key Decryptor that's a  FREE software to instantly recover License Keys of popular Windows products.The supported list of software's of which the keys can be extracted is shown below :

Microsoft Windows NT

Microsoft Windows XP

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Windows 8

Microsoft Office 2003

Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2010

Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2008

Visual Studio 2010

Visual Studio 2012

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 10

VMWare Workstation 6.x

VMWare Workstation 7.x

VMWare Workstation 8.x

VMWare Workstation 9.x

2.    It automatically detects and decrypts the license/CD key of all the supported products from your system. Currently it can recover License key of few popular products including Windows Operating System, Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, Internet Explorer, VMWare Worktation. The best thing about this is FREE...now though nothing is free in this world...it may be having its own repercussions in the background

 :-) Here are the main features & benefits: 

-  Instantly decrypt and recover license/CD keys of popular Products

-  Simple & elegant GUI interface makes it easy to use.

-  Right click context menu to quickly copy the Product License Key

-  Sort feature to arrange the displayed passwords

-  Backup the the recovered Product Keys to HTML/XML/TEXT file.

-  Integrated Installer for assisting you in local Installation & Uninstallation.

3.  The product can be downloaded at http://securityxploded.com/product-key-decryptor.php

BARE METAL ENVIRONMENT & HYPERVISORS

1.   I had till now been playing around with Virtual Machines for quiet some time . I started with loading xp on Vista around 2006-7 and then tried networking,played around with basic linux OS....but what I did everi time was that I loaded the host OS first and then allocated the desired resources in form of some RAM and HDD and then booting the new OS....but then I was wasting the host OS Resource that actually is running the various virtual machines on it.....so how to use that, is where Bare Metal Environment comes in to rescue.

2.    Simply told,a bare metal environment is a system in which a virtual machine is installed directly on hardware rather than within the host operating system (OS). The term "bare metal" refers to a hard disk, the usual medium on which a computer's OS is installed.But then how come it is called virtual when the machine is directly running on the hardware? So actually a kind of  a pseudonym since a virtual machine running directly on bare metal would technically not be a virtual machine. In such cases VMs run within a hypervisor which creates the abstraction layer between physical and virtual hardware. So whats Hypervisor?? :-)

3.    A hypervisor is actually the virtual machine manager (VMM), or a virtualization technique allowing multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a host computer. Multiple instances of a variety of operating systems may share the virtualized hardware resources.The hypervisors are classified into basically two types as follows :

Type 1 refers to bare metal hypervisors that run directly on the host's hardware to control the hardware and to manage guest operating systems. 

Type 2 refers to hypervisors that run within a conventional operating system environment. With the hypervisor layer as a distinct second software level, guest operating systems run at the third level above the hardware.This classification can be made more clear with the help of figures below :

TYPE 1 : THE NATIVE BARE METAL TYPE

(click to enlarge)

TYPE 2 : HOSTED TYPE

(click to enlarge)

4.    Thanks Wiki and http://forums.hornfans.com

VIRTUAL BOX : SOLVED - FAILED TO OPEN HARD DISK ISSUE

1. I had been an avid follower of VMWARE until recently wherein I have shifted my loyalties to VIRTUAL BOX....simple,easy....and the best part is that it is OPENSOURCE.One problem that I often used to face was that when I copied a VDI file from one place to another...it used to give me a message as shown in the screen shot below that said something like " Failed to open the hardddisk F:\....\.....vdi.So I used to keep trying ways and means but that remained unsolved.But there is a single command line solution to this that goes like this...(also shown in the screen shot).Goto the command prompt first as administrator.

Goto the folder C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox by typing

c:\>cd C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox

and then type

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe internalcommands sethduuid "h:\path to the vdi folder\yourvdifilename.vdi"

and this should give a message similar to this 

UUID changed to: 3cfa288c-9e91-42e2-acdc-9821ab9d4aab

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

thats it...now open...u should not get the message!!!

Windows 8 Developer Pre BETA : How to get full screen on a VM?

In continuation with my earlier post here about windows 8 Pre Beta edition,one thing that bugged me for a while was not getting the display across full screen in spite of choosing "view full screen" from drop down.The answer to this goes like this

..SIMPLY CHOOSE A HIGHER RESOLUTION AND U WILL GET IT....

Simple to get till u know!!!!!!!!!!!

Windows 8 Developer Preview : Pre Beta Version for Developers

I recently downloaded the Windows 8 Preview Developer edition from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516 and then tried running it as a virtual machine.Found the following issues :

- does not run on VMWARE 7

- runs on VMWARE 8

- Donno y...but runs at a pathetic speed on VMWARE 8 inspite of a good resourceful machine with upto 1.5 GB of RAM.

- Even on installation on VMWARE 8...doesnt show the NIC card so it has no access to Internet.So no updates.

- Runs at a horse's pace in VIRTUAL BOX.

- No NIC issues in virtual box.