Openwrt in VMware

I'm doing my final year project in network security. For that I have to create a virtual network to work with. I have chosen VMware. And for router firmware I decided OpenWRT, a GNU/Linux based firmware for devices like gateways.

But When I tried to run OpenWRT in VMware, I found a big problem. Actually OpenWRT comes in the format of raw image (.image). It can't be directly installed directly in VMware. So I need to find alternatives. But I'm new to both VMware and also OpenWRT. So I'm stuck first. After I read so many forums, I got some idea. But no method given in those forums worked. Each and every one has come with its own fault. So I started doing myself things. Finally I got it. I just do the following...

• Install VMware
• Download Openwrt 
• Install qemu, commend line virtual emulator. Here It will be used to convert the raw image into vmdk image.
• now convert the raw image into vmdk format by issuing the following commend

  qemu-img convert -f raw <source_file_name> -O vmdk <desitination_file_name>

• For example, If you have downloaded openwrt-x86-ext2.image, run the following commend in terminal. 

  qemu-img convert -f raw openwrt-x86-ext2.image -O vmdk openwrt-x86-ex2.vmdk

• Now start VMware. 
• Create a new virtual machine. In the first dialogue, select custom installation
• In the next dialogue, select other linux, and select memory, network adaptor, and other things as you like. 
• And finally It will ask for the hard disk. Then select "use existing hard disk" and browse it towards the vmdk file created previously.
• Give finish. Your work is over. Now run OpenWRT from VMware.      
• Its default IP address is 192.168.1.1. So use this IP address to connect  the firmware.

08-10-2010

The continuation of yesterday. I started working in the morning itself. As I heard network sharing is the best idea,  I installed samba server in Ubuntu. It was fine. I simply installed it using apt-get. After that I created a folder and shared in the network in Windows7. Now using samba I can open that shared folder. 

But also the copy paste between OSs functionality was working. So the shared folder never need anymore. I copied qemu for linux and the OpenWRT image into linux. But I don't know how to install qemu. Because I can't find any install file inside it. It was the souce. I have to compile and make it. I read about it only in the evening. As I don't know how to compile it, again I used apt-get to install qemo. Finally I converted the raw image into vmdk image. And I created the vmx file by copying the code provided in the post itself. 

I copied both vmdk and vmx file into window. Now I opened that in VMware. As usual, it didn't run. It has reported a syntax error. I'm exhausted. I searched for possibilities to convert binary file into iso image. The result came as there are software available to do  that. 

So now I started how to compile source code into binary file. I read in linux.org. Also searched many posts,  blogs, etc. Till didn't find anything valuable. Search will continue tomorow...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

07-10-2010

Today I started working for project, after a week gap. I tried to install OpenWRT in VMware. I read many posts about it. But I can't find the apt one. At last in the evening I found a Chinese post about it. I translated it into English (thanks to Google translation).

That told about another virtual cpu Qemu. It said that there is an option in Qemu to convert raw image into VMware image (vmdk). I thought that would work. Fortunately both Qemu and VMware image are small (Qemu is 3MB and VMware image is around 50MB). But mistakenly I downloaded the LInux version of Qemu. Then I started again the Windows version (7MB).

In that evening my modem's speed sucks. So I put the download and went to another work. My bother came and just closed the downloads. When I came back, my system was shutdown. When I booted it, the aero theme is not working. I had only the older type of visual experience. I try to look about the problem in Internet. So I started connecting my modem. Again there was an error that some service to make remote connection couldn't be run.

But fortunately that error helped. I opened msconfig to see the services which are allowed to run. There I saw that some services including that remote network connection service and the theme manager. I simply enabled all the services and restarted my system.

After restarting the system everything worked fine. I didn't know why that was happened. So I ran a full scan by panda cloud anti virus and at the same time I resumed the download (fortunately I do all my download using a download manager).

The scan as well as the download finishes around 11 o clock night. After that only I felt better. I ran the command to convert the raw OpenWRT image into vmdk image(qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk

). But again my time sucks.  Whenever I ran it a Windows dialogue box appeared and said that qemu-image is not responding so close the program. There was no alternate option.

As my good time I have already downloaded the linux version of Qemu. So I started my Ubuntu 10.04 in VMware. As doing copy and paste between Windows host and Windows guest, I can't do with Ubuntu and Windows 7. I installed VMware tools inside the guest Ubuntu (here I learned to use gzip, tar and how to install a .pl file).But that never helped.

I searched for solutions online. The best way they told is network sharing. But how to? This is not the right time to find the answer. Because now the time is 12.30AM. I was thinking about the butterfly effect (the chaos theory) and shuteddown my system...

Yeah! got the coders...

Some weeks before I have sent mails to the people who worked on the project. I was afraid, whether they will see my mail, as those email ids are their college ids. But fortunately, I received mails from two of them Andre and Luis. They told me that they'll help me in this project. Luis told me to learn to work with pointers in C. And Andre suggested me to learn how to install and configure OpenWRT in a router. I asked them whether any virtual environment to do the experiments that need a router. But they can't answer. They told me to buy a new router and work with it. Now I'm happy. Also I'll be very happy if they give their project documentation and the source code.... ;-D

zeroth review

Yeah today the zeroth review. We planned a lot and we create slides make it better. Fortunately our team is called only after lunch. Before entering the lab we discussed more than three times about the concept we are going to implement. But the review was so simple. Mr.Mohan was there. He asked some simple question even before we start, by seeing the title itself. We explained them is a good way they simply accepted. Actually we carried a ieee conference paper not the transaction paper. And the concept we used is totally new. But they never care about them. It was simply over and all our worries went off. At last we reported at our project guide Miss.Rekha and came.

Jolly

This is the name we selected for our project, just for fun. Actually its about defacing arp poisoning attack using a linux destro called openwrt, an embedded operating system that will be run in a router. I, Lakshman, Pranav are doing this project together. We got the base paper from ieee. We have registered with it. We are clear in the concept. But we know nothing about the hardware or software implementation. Now we are zero in technical knowledge, that required to implement this project. Tomorrow zeroth review. I don't know whether ours will be selected or not. But we have confidence. We believe in us. ALL IS WELL :-)

This is the first post about our project. I'll add posts daily about our every activity regarding to this project. I think this will be an unformated document for our project.