To get the most value out of the course, students are required to bring their own laptop so that they can complete all the labs and hands-on exercises. It is the students' responsibility to make sure that the system is properly configured with all drivers necessary to connect to an Ethernet network, and follows the prerequisites below.
It is critical that students have administrator access to the operating system and all security software installed. Changes need to be made to personal firewalls and other host based software in order for the labs to work.
You are required to have Windows XP installed and configured. An understanding of both Windows and Unix/Linux is required to understand the labs.
VMware Player or VMware Workstation is required for the class. You will use VMware to run Windows (native laptop OS) and Linux (virtual machine OS) operating systems simultaneously when performing exercises in class. You must have either the free VMware Player 1.0 or later or the commercial VMware Workstation 5.0 or later installed on your system prior to coming to class. You can download VMware Player for free at the VMWare web site. Alternatively, if you want a more flexible and configurable tool, you can download a free 30-day trial copy of VMware Workstation from the VMWare web site. VMware will send you a time-limited license number for VMware Workstation if you register for the trial at their Web site. No license number is required for VMware Player.
IMPORTANT!
Students must download in advance the VoIP softphone that will be used for the hands-on labs, X-Lite 3.0 from Counterpath Web site. This software is freely available at the Counterpath web site.
Some of the course exercises are based on Windows, while others focus on Linux. We will provide a Linux virtual machine (customized Trixbox version) with all the Linux-based tools pre-installed, that runs within VMware Player or VMware Workstation, to complete the Linux exercises. We will also give you a CD with tools and traffic capture files to experiment during the class and take home for later analysis.
If you have any questions regarding these requirements, please contact laptop_prep@sans.org.