I've spent some good hours trying to get Metasploitable 3 to work on VMware Workstation as a homelab. Here I have sorted the steps that got the metasploitable 3 boxes to work on VMWare Workstation.
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The official instructions from Rapid7 did not work for me. I have encountered issues similar to these below when building up the boxes:
Following the installation steps below avoid the whole building steps. Instead, my steps download the working prebuilt boxes from and allow me to deploy the metasploitable boxes from there.
Before proceeding to the below installation steps, disable Windows Defender's Real-time protection and Cloud-delivered protection. Turn these back on after installing the metasploitable boxes.
Go to C:\Program Files\ and create a new folder named Packer
Extract the packer.exe to the newly created folder
Look at the System Variables portion then double click on Path
Check if Packer is configured correctly, type and run packerin PowerShell. The result should look like this
After rebooting when the installation is done, check if Vagrant is installed correctly by typing vagrant in PowerShell. The result should look like this
Two necessary vagrant plugins to install are the reload plugin and the vmware-desktop plugin
Launch PowerShell
Install vagrant-reload plugin, type and run
Install vmware-desktop plugin, type and run
Check if the plugins are installed by typing vagrant plugin list. The result should look like this
Launch VMware Workstation and reset the virtual network setting by going to Edit > Virtual Network Editor
Then click on Change Settings, which then gives the option to Restore Default
Go to the directory C:\ and make a new folder named metasploitable3-workspace
Open up PowerShell and traverse to the newly created folder C:\metasploitable3-workspace
Type and run
At the same directory location, type and run the below code on PowerShell
This will download the prebuilt metasploitable Linux box for VMware Workstation. The result should look like this
Back on PowerShell, type and run the below code
This will download the prebuilt metasploitable Windows Server 2008 box for VMware Workstation. The result should look like this *Note: The win2k8 box size is huge (~7.3 GB) so the download will take a while*
To check if the two boxes are downloaded successfully, type and run vagrant box list on PowerShell.The result should look like this
To deploy these two boxes, type and run
The deployment process should look similar to below
Once vagrant finished the deployment, launch VMWare Workstation and open the boxes up at C:\metasploitable3-workspace\.vagrant\machines
There are now metasploitable boxes powered on and ready
On the metasploitable Windows Server 2008 box, launch PowerShell, type and run
The result should look like this
Download Packer (Amd64) at
Launch the Run app, by pressing the Windows key ⊞ + R, then type SystemPropertiesAdvanced
Click Environment Variables...
Then click New and paste the directory path C:\Program Files\Packer then press OK
Download and install Vagrant from
Download and install Vagrant VMWare utility from
This step was necessary for me to avoid the issue. I've noted this step as optional in case you didn't encounter the issue.
There should now exist a file named in the directory
