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There are a few things that you need to do to get the competition VM running on your laptop. First, boot your VM in NAT networking mode. Then proceed with the following instructions. NB: these settings should work with VMware, but the process should be similar if you're using something else.

The Problem

The problem is in two parts: (1) Wordpress assumes that it has been assigned a DNS name (which is not true on a local installation), and (2) your browser needs to know how to resolve that DNS name to your VM.

The Solution

We'll tackle the solution in 3 steps.

Step 1: Figure out what subnet your VMs are on and find a static IP assignment

1. Find out VM subnet
   

   Code Block
   ifconfig eth0

   Note the IP address that this produces (aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd).
2. Edit /etc/network/interfaces.static
   

   Code Block
   sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces.static

   and make sure it says the following (aaa.bbb.ccc are the values you got in previous step)
   

   Code Block
   address aaa.bbb.ccc.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway aaa.bbb.ccc.1 dns-nameservers aaa.bbb.ccc.2

3. Point /etc/network/interfaces to your new configuration file
   

   Code Block
   sudo rm /etc/network/interfaces sudo ln -s /etc/network/interfaces.static /etc/network/interfaces

4. Reboot your VM for changes to take effect
   

   Code Block
   sudo /sbin/reboot

5. Test the new network configuration by running
   

   Code Block
   ifconfig eth0

   You should see aaa.bbb.ccc.3 as the IP address.
6. Test external connectivity
   

   Code Block
   ping www.google.com

Step 2: Now that we have a static IP address, let's make sure the guest VM can resolve it.

1. Edit /etc/hosts file to fix the line that maps ctf-portal.ctf.csail.mit.edu to an IP address
   

   Code Block
   sudo nano /etc/hosts

   make sure the last line reads
   

   Code Block
   aaa.bbb.ccc.3 ctf-portal.ctf.csail.mit.edu

2. Test with ping
   

   Code Block
   ping ctf-portal.ctf.csail.mit.edu

   this should give you successful pings to aaa.bbb.ccc.3

Step 3: Finally, the guest should know how to resolve ctf-portal.ctf.csail.mit.edu, but your host that has your browser does not.

1. The solution is similar to above, but OS-dependent. Find the /etc/hosts equivalent on your machine, and insert the same line you used above at the end.
   1. On OS X and Linux, this is /etc/hosts
   2. On Windows, this is %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
2. Test your modifications by pointing your browser to ctf-portal.ctf.csail.mit.edu. You should see the Wordpress front page if everything worked.