The fluorescent lights of the basement computer lab hummed in a frequency that always gave Alex a slight headache. It was 2:00 AM, the only time the university network was fast enough to download anything substantial.

The Windows 2008 VM alone will consume 2-3 GB of RAM.

If a direct OVA is required, third-party community builds are available, though they should be used with caution:

Getting Started with Metasploitable 3: A Guide to the OVA Download and Setup

Some community members push OVA artifacts to Vagrant Cloud. Run:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/metasploitable3/files/metasploitable3-0.3.2-ova.zip/download

As he booted up his computer, Alex realized that he had accidentally deleted the OVA file for Metasploitable 3. He had downloaded it months ago from the official Rapid7 website, but now it was nowhere to be found. Panicked, Alex searched every corner of his computer, but it was gone.