Vulhub is a collection of pre-configured, containerized applications designed to serve as a standardized platform for security research, vulnerability testing, and educational exploitation exercises. It functions as an orchestration framework that enables users to deploy isolated software environments for the purpose of practicing penetration testing and analyzing common security flaws in a controlled setting.
The project utilizes an infrastructure-as-code pattern to define complex, multi-service software stacks, ensuring that testing targets remain consistent and reproducible. By leveraging declarative service orchestration, it automates the startup sequence and network connectivity of interconnected containers, allowing researchers to simulate realistic, vulnerable application architectures. The environment lifecycle is ephemeral, providing automated tools to create, manage, and destroy instances to maintain a clean state across research sessions.
Beyond its core deployment capabilities, the platform supports a range of workflows including security tooling validation, vulnerability analysis, and hands-on security training. Users can monitor container health, inspect application logs, and modify internal configurations to perform deep analysis of specific software components. The repository is structured to facilitate the rapid setup of standardized targets for testing and educational purposes.
