Adding vmdk VMs to Our Proxmox Cyber Range

This how-to is specific to my Proxmox environment. My previous write up, based on 0xBEN’s excellent guide, downloaded VMs directly from Vulnhub to the Proxmox server. This is a very efficient process if the file is hosted online.

I have archived a number of vmdk files on a local server, and would like to be able to quickly transfer the file to Proxmox over my local network.

General Steps

  1. Create a VM
  2. Delete the Hard Disk(s)
  3. Transfer vmdk to Proxmox
  4. Attach imported vmdk to VM
  5. Finalize the Disk: SATA, Change boot order

1. Create a VM

In this case, I will be uploading two vmdk’s, Blue and DamnVulnWindows.

These are the default credentials for Blue, just in case you are looking for them:

user - Password123! administrator - Password456!

We will begin with these default resources. The can always be increased if necessary:

RAM: 4 GB Processors: 2 HD: 20 GB

create vm

Create a VM.

name

  • Give it a name.
  • Note the VM ID; you will need this later while attaching the vmdk to the VM.

os

  • Do not use any media - we will be uploading then attaching the vmdk file directly to the VM.
  • We will not be using an ISO
  • Configure the appropriate operating system fields.

system

  • SCSI Controller: VirtIO SCSI

disks

  • Choose SCSI again
  • Storage: choose the 2TB storage
  • Customize Disk size (although we will be deleting this disk and attaching the vmdk)

cpu

  • 2 cores for these Windows boxes

memory

  • Customize your RAM

network-vmdk

  • select the pfSense switch (vmbr1)
  • VLAN Tag = 999 = ISOLATED VLAN
  • deselect firewall
  • Model: VirtIO

confirm

  • Confirm
  • Finish

2. Delete the Hard Disk(s)

We will want to delete two Hard Disks

  • Hard Disk (scsi0)
  • Unused Disk 0

Go to VM | Hardware | Select Hard Disk | Detach | Remove | Yes

removehard

confirm2

Remove Unused Disk O

disk0

3. Transfer vmdk to Proxmox

We will be doing this in a few easy steps:

Drag and drop vmdk to Kali box

The file can be found here: /var/NX/nx Move it to the Kali /tmp folder

** Spin up a temporary webserver on Kali box**

python3 -m http.server 80

kalihttp

** Download to Proxmox /tmp folder **

Go to Proxmox shell:

cd /tmp
wget http://10.0.0.10/Blue-disk001.vmdk

wget

  • download (wget) file to Proxmox /tmp folder

4. Attach imported vmdk to VM

Now that the vmdk file has been uploaded to the Proxmox /tmp folder, we can attach it to the VM:

qm importdisk 103 Blue-disk001.vmdk local-lvm-2TB --format vmdk

Note where you are importing it to ie. the 2TB LVM, and the associated VM ID seen previously.

attach1 attach2

5. Finalize the Disk: SATA, Change boot order

You should now see an Unused Disk 0 that we just imported and attached to the VM. We need to change the Bus/Device to SATA.

disk0-1

Double click the disk:

sata

  • Change Bus/Device to SATA
  • Add

Change the boot order: bootorder

  • Make sure SATA is the first, and only enabled boot disk.

And that’s it! Happy Hacking!

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