Chapter 1. Getting Started

Table of Contents

Check the System Requirements
Downloading And Burning The ISO Image
On A Linux System
On A Windows System
Examine the Boot Options
Booting
Booting Without a DHCP Server
Using A Serial Console At Boot
Choose a Access Method
Console Access
Serial Port Access
Access Via ssh/putty
Use the Web User Interface
Bring Up a X Desktop on the Local System
Run a X Desktop Remotely (VNC)
Setting the Password (nstpasswd)
Text Editors (vim, jed)
Determine or Set the IP Address
Automating Your Setup with lnstcustom
Preparing a Thumb Drive for lnstcustom
Using lnstcustom With a Web Server

This section is for those which downloaded version 1.8.1 (its still useful for 1.8.0) of the bootable ISO image file from http://sourceforge.net/projects/nst and successfully burned it to a CDROM. If you received your ISO from some other location or created a custom ISO from the source code it is likely that there will be discrepancies.

The Network Security Toolkit is designed provide a large assortment of tools that run entirely in RAM. A primary goal of the project was to provide a bootable ISO that anyone could try booting without fear of having the contents of their hard drive modified.

Because of this basic design decision, the Network Security Toolkit requires a fair amount of RAM. Here are the minimum system requirements.

Table 1.1. Minimum Requirements

ComponentMinimumRecommendedNotes
CPUCeleroni686

It will NOT run on a Intel 386, Intel 486, or Intel Pentium class CPU. It is known to work on the Intel Celeron (466MHz) and above, Intel Pentium II (266MHz) and above, AMD Anthlon, AMD Duron, and AMD Anthlon XP.

RAM128MB256MB

The minimum amount of 128MB is only enough for basic applications. If you want to run X, snort, or any serious set of applications, you will want at least 256MB of RAM. If you have Linux swap partitions available and don't mind having the Network Security Toolkit make use of them, you can use the laddswap command.

Motherboard--

The Network Security Toolkit should work on any motherboard which is support by Fedora 8. However, some newer motherboards have components which we don't have the drivers for. You typically get a kernel panic at boot time in this situation.

Ethernet02

Technically, you could use the Network Security Toolkit without a Ethernet card installed. However, it wouldn't be of much use for networking. Two (or more) Ethernet ports are strongly recommended allowing one to be used for general access to the Network Security Toolkit and the others to act as a probes to monitor network traffic (stealth mode). The drivers included on the ISO may or may not support the Ethernet devices in your system (some of the newer motherboards have Ethernet devices which don't work).

CDROM24X52X

It would probably work on a 4X CDROM, but the access time would be painfully slow. Older CDROM drives seem to require the NST_CDROM_IDE option at boot time.