A hypervisor, in addition to having a really cool name, is simply software that manages virtual machines.
For the hypervisor, we recommend using VMware Workstation Pro (find "VMware Workstation Pro for PC").
VirtualBox is also another popular choice.
Note that as of early 2025, these instruction will not work for Apple Silicon Macs. They natively use the arm architecture where emulation of x86 for a virtual machine is prohibitively slow.
We have a "pre-built" virtual machine image that you can use! You can download it at the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xvfs6J1w2LG5EEKIaYsQapQM1strsjMo/view?usp=sharing (use your ONID email to access it). The file is about 6GB.
This will download an .ova file. This is the format of a pre-configured virtual machine - it is an Ubuntu distribution with the CTF and reverse-engineering tools that we use pre-installed. The user is ubuntu and the password is league (all lowercase).
For your given virtual machine manager, find instructions to import a VM from an ".ova" file.
Additionally, once you have downloaded the .ova file, you may want to create a copy of the file in case you want to create a new virtual machine from the same base image at a later point.
If the process above doesn't work, please let us know. You can also use the following instructions to build the VM from scratch.
We will be using Ubuntu for our VM. Please download Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop here - this is hosted at OSU's Open Source Lab!
.iso that ends in desktop-amd64.isoThe installation process will take a while - from 30 minutes to an hour.
Open VMWare and follow these instructions carefully, as the latest version of VMWare coupled with the Ubuntu ISO has a critical bug with the "Easy Install" feature that prevents logging in for the first time, so we want to bypass that. Do not do an "Easy Install".
Linux and the version is Ubuntu 64-bit.Maximum disk size (GB) to 40.Customize Hardware. Select New CD/DVD (SATA), select Use ISO image file, and browse to find the Ubuntu .iso you previously downloaded. Click close when you are done.finish and boot into the virtual machine by clicking Play Virtual Machine.Please go through the Ubuntu installation process, selecting Try or Install ubuntu in the first screen, and choosing Install Ubuntu in a subsequent step. We recommend keeping everything default, with the following modifications:
sudo), so keep it easy to type. Also note that it is very easy to change your password once you login with the passwd command.Please remove the installation medium, then press ENTER).You may get a pop-up notification at the bottom of the screen telling you to "Install VMWare tools to enable many features...". You should ignore this message, as it is only meant for very old versions of Ubuntu.
Now, we will be installing a big suite of tools that are used in CTF!
Please do the following:
curl by typing the following command:sudo apt install curl
curl -L osusec.gitlab.io/ctfleague/setup | bash
reboot command.Now, start hacking! Everything is ready go to!
Check out the "Linux tips" to get some basics of Linux!