How to set up Ettercap on an ubuntu KVM

Ettercap is a powerful and flexible tool to combat man-in-the-middle attacks that also supports many additional features for network and host analysis. In this guide I'll describe how to install Ettercap step by step. 

For this tutorial we're going to need an KVM running Ubuntu. We'll be running 18.04 but for other versions the installation process should be similar. You can easily get a KVM running Ubuntu on the cloudcontainers.net website. Note that running a standard cloud container (using lx) will not work with Ettercap.

Pre-requisites

It's always good practice to start off by updating your current packages:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Next we can install Ettercap's dependencies:

sudo apt install zlib1g zlib1g-dev build-essential

Ettercap used to be one version, however, it was split up into a text- and a graphical version. Both versions will work, so your choice depends on your personal preference. 

Ettercap-graphical (option 1)

If you want Ettercap to generate you a UI, you will want to choose the graphical installation. Execute the following command:

sudo apt install ettercap-graphical

After the installation is complete you can run it using the following command:

sudo ettercap -G

Running this command should open up a UI looking like this:

Ettercap-text-only (option 2)

If you want Ettercap to only run on the KVM in text mode, use the following command to install:

sudo apt install ettercap-text-only

After the installation you can run it using the following command:

sudo ettercap -T

You can find Ettercap's manual page using this command:

man ettercap

Congratulations, you've just installed Ettercap your Ubuntu KVM!

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