What is it?
BackBox Linux is a penetration testing and security assessment oriented Linux distribution providing a network and systems analysis toolkit. It includes some of the most commonly known/used security and analysis tools, aiming for a wide spread of goals, ranging from web application analysis to network analysis, stress tests, sniffing, vulnerability assessment, computer forensic analysis, automotive and exploitation.
BackBox.org
BackBox Linux is built on the Ubuntu core then customized for Penetration Testing and Security-related tasks. The user interface uses the Xfce Desktop Environment which is lightweight and offers speed & stability. BackBox has its own software repositories containing the latest stable versions of the most popular and best know ethical hacking tools.
BackBox Community
Being a Free Open Source Community Project there is the opportunity to get involved with the development of the distribution. To help this there are the following resources:
- Blog – this is for developers to keep up-to-date with the laest news, announcements & updates.
- Membership – by becoming a member through a small annual subscription fee you can actively contribute your ideas and participate in the development.
- Forum – this for both getting support but also making suggestions. The development team, contributors and supporters all participate in the forum.
BackBox Cloud
BackBox Linux is also available as an AMI (Amazon Machine Image) on AWS (Amazon Web Services) which is a cloud platform.
By running in the Cloud, BackBox runs as a virtual server which can be configured e.g. resources (CPU, RAM, disk space, comms speed). These can be fixed or variable to guarantee performance, reliability & availability.
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Documentation & Downloading
The BackBox Linux Official Documentation can be found here. This provides the following:
- Getting Started – an introduction, downloading, and BackBox Linux on a bootable device.
- Installing BackBox Linux – on a hard drive or as a VM in VirtualBox or VMware.
- Using BackBox Linux – ‘hardening’ (securing) the distribution plus configuring WireShark.
- Customizing Backbox Linux – building a package from source & building a custom ISO disk image.
- BackBox Linux Community Support – covering the blog, forums, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) Channel & wiki.
The latest BlackBox Linux release can be downloaded here. This is a single amd64 ISO disk image.
Support
The primary resource for support with the BlackBox distro is the community forum. The topics are broken down into the following sections and categories:
- Community
- Announcements – new releases
- General Discussions – anything & everything
- Howtos – installation guides, using tools, fixes
- Scripts – automating tasks, customizing tools
- Security Advisories – errors & issues in the distro or tools
- Videos – visual HowTo’s
- BackBox Linux
- General Support – broad range of problems & solutions
- Hardware Support – hardware problems, driver issues etc
- Software Support – package & distro problems
- Tool Requests – requests for distro features or additional tools to be incorporated into future releases
Do you have any comment or experiences you want to share about BackBox Linux? If so then please comment below.