Cloud Edition was introduced with Parrot 5.0 as a set of headless appliances for servers, containers and embedded devices. Current 7.x releases cover the same ground with several separate image types, so this page explains what to use today when you need Parrot Linux for servers, containers and other machines without a desktop.
Parrot Linux for servers: the options
- Docker images. The quickest way to run Parrot tools on any host. See Parrot on Docker and general Docker usage.
- Virtual machine disk images. QCOW2 for QEMU/KVM and VMDK for VMware are published for each release.
- Vagrant boxes for Home and Security editions, added in 7.3, for reproducible labs.
- Core edition. A minimal system to which you add only the tools you need; see minimal install.
Typical uses
- External penetration testing from a fixed, allow-listed IP address.
- Long-running scans and jobs that should not depend on a laptop staying awake.
- Teaching labs where every student connects to an identical environment.
Before you expose it
Treat a remote Parrot box like any other server: key-only SSH, a firewall that allows only your management address, and regular updates with sudo parrot-upgrade.
Download
The download guide links to the official images and lists the formats available for the current release.
Official images are published by the Parrot project on its download page.