- Network: Bridged adapter (preferred for lab networking) or NAT (for isolated testing)
- Disk type: Virtual disk (preallocated)
- Filesystem inside VM: xfs (default for RHEL/Rocky)
- OS: Rocky Linux (Minimal ISO recommended)
- Root user: Enabled with strong password
- User account: Create a non-root admin with sudo privileges
- Configure SSH access
- Apply system updates
- Install guest additions (if using VirtualBox/VMware)
- Take a clean snapshot for reuse