Using NST for penetration testing becomes easy when we have an idea about how to use the OS and also what tools are included in the OS.
- To use NST, the first step is to boot the system with NST. We have the option to either boot using the live option, or directly install NST on the system. In our example, we have chosen the live boot option. You can choose any option as per your requirement.
- Once booting completes, we get the default desktop of NST as shown here:
- NST comes with a web user interface, which is a kind of control panel to do anything with NST. However, this can be accessed only if the existing user account has a password set. To set the password, we click on the icon Set NST System Password which is on the desktop. This will open a terminal window and give the option to create a new password:
- Once the password has been set, we can access the NST web user interface from any browser of our choice. To access it on the local system we can use this address: http://127.0.0.1:9980/nstwui.
If accessing from any other system on the local network, then use the IP address of the system running NST:
Once we open the link, we are prompted for the username and password. Enter the details and click OK.
- Now we see the landing page of NSTWUI. On the top left, we can see the details of the system running NST. Below this we have the NST menu:
We can also see information about how long the system has been running on the top right:
- NST comes with various tools and amongst those one is bandwidthd. This tool shows an overview of network usage and we can enable it by going to the Network | Monitors | bandwidthd UI menu :
- Once we click on Start Bandwidthd the tool will start running.
- Another important feature that is available is the ability to do a remote activity via SSH using the web interface. Go to the System | Control Management | Run command menu.
A window will open as shown here in the screenshot. We can run any command here:
- NSTWUI also allows the administrator to remotely reboot or shutdown the server from the web interface. To do so, go to the System | Control Management | Reboot menu.
- Click on Proceed to reboot this NST system to confirm. Else click Exit to cancel.
- In the next screen, enter the text as shown and press OK:
