BashCoreV

BashCoreV ("V" for Virtual) is a minimal Buildroot-based Linux distribution designed to run as a lightweight virtual machine, primarily targeting VirtualBox. It's built as a compact Swiss-army-knife environment for students and IT/security practice. Small, fast, and equipped with the essential tools for networking, system administration, and pentesting basics.

Highlights

• ~100 MB ISO minimal footprint, no bloat
• Boots in ~2 seconds
• ~300 MB RAM usage at runtime (1 GB RAM recommended on VirtualBox)
• Kernel Linux 6.19
• Built with Buildroot

Intended use

BashCoreV is aimed at students and anyone who wants a fast, disposable Linux environment to practice IT fundamentals and basic pentesting workflows without the overhead of a full desktop distribution.

Included tools

Networking & recon: nmap, tcpdump, arp-scan, traceroute, whois, dig, nc, curl, wget

Remote access & tunneling: ssh, sshpass, socat, tor, proxychains4

Scripting & dev: python3, perl, ruby, git

System & diagnostics: strace, stress-ng, memtester, sensors, fail2ban

Crypto/misc: openssl

Browsers (text-mode): lynx, links

Benchmarking: iperf3

Getting started

Boot

Default login:

user: root pass: live

Change keyboard layout

sudo loadkeys

Example: sudo loadkeys it for an Italian layout.

Connect to the network

ifconfig eth0 up udhcpc -i eth0

Enable SSH access

Edit the SSH daemon configuration:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Reload/start the daemon:

kill -HUP $(pidof sshd) /usr/sbin/sshd

You can then connect from another VM on the same network via:

ssh root@

Running on VirtualBox

• Recommended RAM: 1 GB
• Boot from the ISO as you would any live Linux image
• Network adapter in Bridged or NAT mode, depending on your setup

What's in this repo

• The prebuilt ISO image
• This README
• The Buildroot defconfig used to produce the image

No official support or documentation is provided beyond what's in this repository, feel free to fork, modify, and improve.

License

BashCoreV is distributed under the MIT License.

• The ISO image and defconfig are provided as-is, without warranties of any kind.
• BashCoreV is built with Buildroot and includes unmodified tools from various open source projects (MIT, BSD, Apache, GPL, etc.). These components remain under their respective licenses; BashCoreV makes no claim over them.
• This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Buildroot or any upstream software included.

Disclaimer

BashCoreV is intended for educational and authorized testing purposes only. Use of the included tools against systems or networks without explicit permission is illegal. The author assumes no responsibility for any illegal use of this software.