Evaluating the Balabit Shell Control Box
November 17, 2015
Table of Contents
1. Evaluating Balabit Shell Control Box in a virtual environment ... 3
1.1. Limitations ... 3
1.2. Downloading the evaluation version of SCB ... 3
2. Setting up SCB and the virtual environment ... 4
2.1. Deploying SCB in a virtual machine ... 4
1. Evaluating Balabit Shell Control Box in a virtual environment
The evaluation version of the Balabit Shell Control Box (SCB) is available as a pre-installed virtual machine for VMware, vSphere (VMware ESX), and VirtualBox. You can obtain an evaluation license and the virtual machine using your MyBalaBit account.
To evaluate SCB in Hyper-V, you can download and install the SCB from the latest ISO file.
1.1. Limitations
The following limitations apply to running SCB in a virtual environment:
■ High availability mode is not supported.
■ Hardware-related alerts and status indicators of SCB may display inaccurate information, for example, display degraded RAID status.
■ The Bridge operation mode of SCB cannot be used.
■ When running SCB under Microsoft Hyper-V, ensure that the network interfaces are actually connected to the network. When running under Hyper-V, SCB indicates on the Basic Settings > Network > Ethernet links page that there is a link even if the network interface is configured and enabled, but not connected to the network.
■ When rebooting SCB in Hyper-V, the following critical error message may appear in the event log of the Hyper-V host:
<Virtual machine name> was reset because an unrecoverable error occurred on a virtual processor that caused a triple fault.
This is normal, there is no problem with SCB. For details, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2711608
1.2. Procedure – Downloading the evaluation version of SCB
Step 1. Login to your MyBalaBit account and request access to the evaluation version of SCB. If you do not have an account, sign up for a new account. Please note that new accounts are not immediately available; you will receive an e-mail when your account is activated. Similarly, you will receive an e-mail when you can access the SCB virtual machine images.
Step 2. Select the SCB evaluation image and download the latest version of SCB. Step 3. Download the SCB license. Evaluation licenses are valid for a month. Step 4. Unpack the downloaded files into a directory.
■ scb-X.X-X.X.X-disk1.vmdk– disk image
■ scb-X.X-X.X.X-VBox-VMPlayer.ovf – (format to be imported into VirtualBox and VMPlayer)
■ scb-X.X-X.X.X-vSphere.ovf– (format to be imported into vSphere)
2. Setting up SCB and the virtual environment
2.1. Deploying SCB in a virtual machine
2.1.1. Procedure – Setting up Balabit Shell Control Box with VMware Player
Step 1. Download the VMware Player application.
Visit the VMware webpage, and complete the registration form required to download the VMware Player. Accept the End User License Agreement, and download latest version of the player for your operating system.
Step 2. Install the VMware Player application.
■ On Microsoft Windows, start theVMware-player-X.X.X.exefile.
■ On Linux systems, unpack the downloadedVMware-player-X.X.X.tar.gz file, then run thevmware-install.plfile. The default installation options work in most situations. Step 3. Start the VMware Player application and select the Open an existing Virtual Machine option. Open the downloaded and extractedscb-X.X-X.X.X-VBox-VMPlayer.ovf file, and start the imported virtual machine.
Wait until the SCB virtual machine boots. A login prompt appears.
2.1.2. Procedure – Setting up Balabit Shell Control Box with vSphere
Step 1. Download the vSphere application.
Visit the vSphere webpage, and download latest version of the application for your operating system. Step 2. Install the vSphere application.
Follow the instructions provided in the vSphere product documentation to install the application. Step 3. Start the VMware vSphere Client application and select the Deploy OVF Template option. Open the
downloaded and extractedscb-X.X-X.X.X-vShpere.ovffile, perform the required setup actions, and start the imported virtual machine.
Wait until the SCB virtual machine boots. A login prompt appears.
2.1.3. Procedure – Setting up Balabit Shell Control Box with VirtualBox
Step 1. Download the VirtualBox application.
Visit the VirtualBox webpage, and download latest version of the player for your operating system. Step 2. Install the VirtualBox application.
■ On Microsoft Windows, start theVirtualBox.exefile.
■ On Linux systems, follow the instructions provided in the VirtualBox manual.
2.1.4. Procedure – Setting up Balabit Shell Control Box with Hyper-V
Step 1. Download the Hyper-V application.
Visit the Hyper-V webpage, and download latest version of the application for your operating system. Step 2. Install the Hyper-V application.
Follow the instructions provided in the Hyper-V product documentation to install the application. Step 3. Install SCB in Hyper-V.
Follow the instructions provided in Appendix G, Balabit Shell Control Box Hyper-V Installation Guide in The Balabit Shell Control Box 4 LTS Administrator Guide.
2.2. Procedure – Creating a simple scenario
Step 1. Connect to SCB.
The SCB virtual machine acquires an IP address from your DHCP server accessible in the virtual environment. After SCB has booted up, the console displays the IP address of the SCB web interface at login prompt. To connect to SCB, use this IP address. See Section 3.1, The initial connection to SCB in The Balabit Shell Control Box 4 LTS Administrator Guide.
Step 2. Complete the Welcome Wizard as described in Procedure 3.2, Configuring SCB with the Welcome Wizard in The Balabit Shell Control Box 4 LTS Administrator Guide. Upload the evaluation license file you have downloaded with your MyBalaBit account.
Step 3. Configure a server: set up a Windows host on the same subnet, and enable Remote Desktop (RDP) access to it.
Step 4. Configure a connection on SCB to forward the incoming RDP connection to the Windows host and establish a connection to the host. See Procedure 3.3, Logging in to SCB and configuring the first connection in The Balabit Shell Control Box 4 LTS Administrator Guide for details.
Step 5. Replay your session: download the Audit Player application from SCB, download the audit trails of your sessions, and replay them. See Chapter 16, Viewing session information and replaying audit trails in The Balabit Shell Control Box 4 LTS Administrator Guide for details.