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Vulhub

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some common questions about Vulhub and their answers.

Network Issues

Why do I experience timeouts or errors when installing Docker or pulling vulnerability environments?

If you're located in mainland China, you may experience network limitations due to the Great Firewall (GFW). This can affect Docker installations and image downloads.

Solutions:

  • Use a VPS or cloud server located outside mainland China
  • Use China-based Docker registry mirrors

Architecture Compatibility Issues

Why do I get errors when running Vulhub on Apple Silicon (M1+) Macs?

Most Vulhub environments are built for x86 architecture and won't run natively on ARM-based machines like Apple Silicon Macs.

Solutions:

Set the Docker platform environment variable before using the Docker compose command:

# Set the platform to x86_64
export DOCKER_DEFAULT_PLATFORM=linux/amd64

# Start the environment
docker compose up -d

Alternatively, you can add the platform specification in your docker-compose.yml files:

services:
  service-name:
    image: image-name
    platform: linux/amd64

For more information, please refer to this issue.

System Configuration Issues

Why can't I start some environments on Kali Linux?

Some environments may fail to start on Kali Linux due to system limitations with error messages like "too many open files" or similar resource exhaustion errors.

What is ulimit?

ulimit is a Linux system command and shell built-in that controls the resources available to the shell and processes started by it. It sets or reports user process resource limits, including the maximum number of open files a process can have.

Solution:

The simplest solution is to modify the Docker daemon configuration to increase the default ulimit:

  1. Edit the Docker daemon configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/docker/daemon.json
  1. Add or modify the file to include the default-ulimit parameter:
{
  "default-ulimit": "nofile=65535:65535"
}
  1. Restart the Docker service:
sudo systemctl restart docker

After these changes, you should be able to run Vulhub environments without hitting resource limits.

Additional Help

If you encounter other issues not mentioned here, please submit an issue on the Vulhub GitHub repository.

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