Save and Restore a Project in Burp Suite

Introduction

In this lab, you will learn the fundamental workflow of saving and restoring a project in Burp Suite. When conducting security assessments, it's common to work on a project over multiple days. Saving your work as a Burp project file stores all of the suite's data, including proxy history, target site map, and configurations for various tools. This allows you to close Burp Suite and resume your work later exactly where you left off, without losing any progress.

This lab will guide you through creating a temporary project, saving it as a named project file, closing the application, and then reopening the saved project to restore your session.

Go to the 'Project' Menu

In this step, you will launch Burp Suite and navigate to the menu where project-saving options are located.

First, you need to start the Burp Suite application.

1. Click on the Application menu at the top-left corner of the desktop.
2. Navigate to the Other category.
3. Click on Burp Suite Community Edition to launch it.

The Burp Suite startup wizard will appear. For now, we will start with a temporary project.

1. In the dialog box, ensure Temporary project is selected.
2. Click the Next button.
3. On the next screen, click Start Burp to use the default settings.

Once the main Burp Suite window opens, all your work is being held in memory. To save it permanently, you need to use the Project menu.

Locate the main menu bar at the top of the Burp Suite window. Click on the Project menu to see a dropdown list of options related to project management.

Select 'Save copy' to Create a Project File

In this step, you will save the current state of your project into a file on disk. This creates a snapshot of your work that you can restore later.

From the Project menu dropdown that you opened in the previous step, select the Save copy option.

A file dialog window will open, prompting you to choose a location and a name for your project file. It's important to save your work in an accessible location. For this lab, we will use the ~/project directory.

1. In the file dialog, navigate to the project folder located in your home directory (/home/labex/project).
2. In the Name: field, type my-burp-project.
3. Click the Save button in the bottom-right corner of the dialog.

Burp Suite will now save all current data into the file named my-burp-project in the ~/project directory.

Close Burp Suite

In this step, you will close Burp Suite to simulate the end of a work session. This is a necessary step to properly test the project restoration functionality.

To close the application, you can either click the X button in the top-right corner of the main Burp Suite window or go to the Burp menu and select Exit.

A confirmation dialog will appear asking, "Are you sure you want to exit?". Click the Yes button to confirm and close the application completely.

Relaunch Burp Suite and Select 'Open existing project'

In this step, you will restart Burp Suite and prepare to open the project you saved earlier, effectively starting a new work session.

First, relaunch Burp Suite using the same method as before:

1. Click on the Application menu -> Other -> Burp Suite Community Edition.

The startup wizard will appear again. This time, instead of creating a new temporary project, you will open your saved work.

1. In the project selection dialog, select the Open existing project option.
2. Click the Next button to proceed.

This tells Burp Suite that you intend to load a project from a file on disk.

Locate and Open Your Saved Project File

In this final step, you will locate and open your saved project file to restore your previous session.

After clicking Next in the previous step, a file chooser dialog titled "Select project file" will appear.

1. Navigate to the ~/project directory, which is located at /home/labex/project.
2. Select the my-burp-project file you created earlier.
3. Click the Open button.

You will be returned to the startup wizard, and the path to your selected project file (/home/labex/project/my-burp-project) will now be displayed.

Finally, click the Start Burp button.

Burp Suite will now launch and load all the data from your saved project file. Any proxy history, target sitemap information, or other tool data from your previous session will be fully restored, allowing you to continue your work seamlessly.

Summary

In this lab, you have successfully learned the fundamental process of managing your work in Burp Suite. You practiced saving your current session as a project file and then restoring that project to continue your work.

This skill is crucial for any long-term or complex security assessment, as it allows you to pause and resume your work without losing valuable data like proxy history and target scope. You are now equipped to manage your Burp Suite projects effectively.