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Exegol Multi-Container Guide

Run multiple Exegol penetration testing containers simultaneously with browser-based remote desktop access, using the official Exegol CLI.

CLI Commands (Official exegol)

exegol info                           # List all containers and their status
exegol stop my-box                    # Stop a running container
exegol rm my-box                      # Remove a container entirely

exegol-start.sh Wrapper

The wrapper script calls the official exegol CLI with sensible defaults and auto-sets the VNC password so you can connect without a password prompt.

exegol [name] [--port PORT] [--vpn FILE] [--log] [--privileged]

Arguments

Argument Default Description
name exegol-htb Container name (actual container is exegol-<name>)
--port PORT 45377 noVNC web port
--vpn FILE — OpenVPN config file to pass to the CLI
--log — Enable Exegol logging
--privileged — Run with full privileges (use if tools fail)

VNC Password

On first start, the wrapper background-sets root:exegol via docker exec. When the desktop is ready you'll see:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ Desktop ready!
   URL:      http://exegol.internal:PORT/vnc.html
   User:     root  |  Password: exegol
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Resume Behaviour

If the container exegol-<name> already exists, the script calls exegol start <name> to resume it (the official CLI restarts it and re-attaches the desktop).

Running Multiple Containers

Each container needs a unique noVNC port.

Port Allocation Convention

Port Use Case Command
45377 HTB exploitation (default) exegol
45378 OSINT / reconnaissance exegol osint --port 45378
45379 Dev / tool testing exegol dev --port 45379
45380+ Additional containers exegol box2 --port 45380

Why Multiple Containers?

  • Isolation: Keep HTB exploitation separate from OSINT work
  • Persistence: Each container keeps its own shell history and tool state
  • Parallel work: Work on multiple boxes or tasks simultaneously
  • Clean separation: Different tools/configs per engagement

Use Cases

HTB Exploitation (Default)

# Connect VPN and start default container
htb-vpn ~/htb/starting-point.ovpn
exegol

# Access at http://exegol.internal:45377/vnc.html  (root / exegol)
# Attach a terminal alongside the desktop:
docker exec -it exegol-exegol-htb zsh

OSINT Investigation

exegol osint-work --port 45378

# Access at http://exegol.internal:45378/vnc.html
# Tools: maltego, spiderfoot, recon-ng, theHarvester

Dev / Tool Testing

exegol dev-test --port 45379

# Access at http://exegol.internal:45379/vnc.html

Multiple HTB Boxes Side-by-Side

exegol htb-box1 --port 45377
exegol htb-box2 --port 45378

# Two browser tabs, two separate environments
# Both share the host VPN (tun0)

Common Workflows

Start, Work, Stop

# Start (creates container + desktop)
exegol my-box --port 45378

# Work in browser at http://exegol.internal:45378/vnc.html

# Stop when done
exegol stop my-box

# Remove container entirely
exegol rm my-box

Resume a Stopped Container

# Re-enter existing container (wrapper detects it exists)
exegol my-box --port 45378

Attach Terminal to Running Container

# Open a shell in a running container
docker exec -it exegol-my-box zsh

List All Containers

exegol-list    # alias for: exegol info

Troubleshooting

Desktop Not Accessible

  1. Check the container is running: exegol info
  2. Verify the container name: Exegol CLI names containers exegol-<name>
  3. Check port availability: ss -tlnp | grep 45377
  4. Try stopping and restarting: exegol stop my-box && exegol my-box

VNC Password Prompt

The wrapper auto-sets root:exegol in a background job. If you see a password prompt, the background job may not have run yet (container took >60s to start). Set it manually:

docker exec exegol-my-box bash -c "echo 'root:exegol' | chpasswd"

Port Already in Use

Error: Port 45378 is already in use

Use a different port or find what's using it:

ss -tlnp | grep 45378
exegol my-box --port 45380

VPN Not Working in Container

  • Exegol uses --network host and inherits the host's tun0 interface
  • Check VPN on host: htb-vpn status
  • Check routing: ip route show dev tun0
  • All containers share the same VPN connection

Container Won't Start

# Check for name conflicts
exegol info

# Remove stale container and retry
exegol rm my-box
exegol my-box --port 45378

See also: Quick Reference for command cheat sheet