Kali linux live image

Kali linux live image

Kali Linux “Live” has two options in the default boot menu which enable persistence — the preservation of data on the “Kali Live” USB drive — across reboots of “Kali Live”. This can be an extremely useful enhancement, and enables you to retain documents, collected testing results, configurations, etc., when running Kali Linux “Live” from the USB drive, even across different systems. The persistent data is stored in its own partition on the USB drive, which can also be optionally LUKS-encrypted.

To make use of the USB persistence options at boot time, you’ll need to do some additional setup on your “Kali Linux Live” USB drive; this article will show you how.

This guide assumes that you have already created a Kali Linux “Live” USB drive as described in the doc page for that subject. For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume you’re working on a Linux-based system.

You’ll need to have root privileges to do this procedure, or the ability to escalate your privileges with the command “sudo su”.

In this example, we assume:

• you are running as the root user. As of Kali Linux 2020.1, we do not use root user by default. You can switch to root using the command “sudo bash”
• your USB drive is /dev/sdb
• your USB drive has a capacity of at least 8GB — the Kali Linux image takes over 3GB, and for this guide, we’ll be creating a new partition of about 4GB to store our persistent data in
• you are running on a separate Linux system (cannot be Live Boot Kali)

In this example, we’ll create a new partition to store our persistent data into, starting right above the second Kali Live partition and ending at 7GB, put an ext3 file system onto it, and create a persistence.conf file on the new partition.

First, begin by imaging the latest Kali Linux ISO (currently 2021.3) to your USB drive as described in this article. We’re going to assume that the two partitions created by the imaging are /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb2 . This can be verified with the command fdisk -l .

Create and format an additional partition on the USB drive. First, let’s create the new partition in the empty space above our Kali Live partitions. We have to do this from the command line as gparted will read the imaged ISO as a large block. The following command will, as a short explanation, shrink that block to only be the Kali Live partition.

The parted command may advise you that it can’t use the exact start values you specified; if so, accept the suggested value instead. If advised that the partition isn’t placed at an optimal location, “ignore” it. When parted completes, the new partition should have been created at /dev/sdb3 ; again, this can be verified with the command fdisk -l .

1. Next, create an ext3 file system in the partition and label it persistence .

1. Create a mount point, mount the new partition there, and then create the configuration file to enable persistence. Finally, unmount the partition.

Adding USB Persistence with LUKS Encryption

Alternatively, you can create a LUKS-encrypted persistent storage area. This adds an extra layer of security to your sensitive files when traveling with Kali Live on USB devices. In the following example, we’ll create a new partition to store our persistent data into, starting right above the second Kali Live partition and ending at 7GB, set up LUKS encryption on the new partition, put an ext3 file system onto it, and create a persistence.conf file on it.

1. Image the latest Kali Linux ISO (currently 2021.3) to your USB drive as described in this article.
2. Create the new partition in the empty space above our Kali Live partitions.

The parted command may advise you that it can’t use the exact start value you specified; if so, accept the suggested value instead. If advised that the partition isn’t placed at an optimal location, “ignore” it. When parted completes, the new partition should have been created at /dev/sdb3 ; again, this can be verified with the command fdisk -l .

1. Initialize the LUKS encryption on the newly-created partition. You’ll be warned that this will overwrite any data on the partition. When prompted whether you want to proceed, type “YES” (all upper case). Enter your selected passphrase twice when asked to do so, and be sure to pick a passphrase you’re going to remember: if you forget it, your data will still be persistent, just irretrievable (and unusable).

1. Create the ext3 filesystem, and label it “persistence”.

1. Create a mount point, mount our new encrypted partition there, set up the persistence.conf file, and unmount the partition.

1. Close the encrypted channel to our persistence partition.

That’s really all there is to it! To use the persistent data features, simply plug your USB drive into the computer you want to boot up Kali Live on — make sure your BIOS is set to boot from your USB device — and fire it up. When the Kali Linux boot screen is displayed, choose the persistent option you set up on your USB drive, either normal or encrypted.

Updated on: 2021-Sep-27
Author: g0tmi1k

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Kali linux live image

One of the fastest method, for getting up and running with Kali Linux is to run it “live” from a USB drive. This method has several advantages:

• It’s non-destructive — it makes no changes to the host system’s hard drive or installed OS, and to go back to normal operations, you simply remove the Kali Live USB drive and restart the system
• It’s portable — you can carry Kali Linux in your pocket and have it running in minutes on an available system
• It’s customizable — you can roll your own custom Kali Linux ISO image and put it onto a USB drive using the same procedures
• It’s potentially persistent — with a bit of extra effort, you can configure your Kali Linux “live” USB drive to have persistent storage, so the data you collect is saved across reboots

In order to do this, we first need to create a bootable USB drive which has been set up from an ISO image of Kali Linux.

The specifics of this procedure will vary depending on whether you’re doing it on a Linux, macOS/OS X, or Windows system.

What You’ll Need

A verified copy of the appropriate ISO image of the latest Kali build image for the system you’ll be running it on.

If you’re running under Windows, there is not one tool that is considered the overall best for imaging. We recommend Etcher (installer or portable) as it is simpler to use, however Rufus is another popular option with its advance options. If one does not work for you, consider the other.

A USB drive, 8GB or larger (Systems with a direct SD card slot can use an SD card with similar capacity. The procedure is identical.)

Creating a Bootable Kali USB Drive on Windows (Etcher)

Plug your USB drive into an available USB port on your Windows PC, note which drive designator (e.g. “ G:\ «) it uses once it mounts, and launch Etcher.

Press Flash from file, and locate the Kali Linux ISO file to be imaged with.

Press Select target and check the list of options for the USB drive (e.g. “ G:\ ”, the manufacture and size).

Click the Flash! button once ready.

Note: You may get a UAC prompt asking for administrator privileges that you will need to accept.

5. Once Etcher alerts you that the image has been flashed, you can safely remove the USB drive and proceed to boot into Kali with it.

At the time of writing, Etcher will use MBR. This is to allow for the most hardware compatibility.

Creating a Bootable Kali USB Drive on Windows (Rufus)

Plug your USB drive into an available USB port on your Windows PC, note which drive designator (e.g. “ G:\ «) it uses once it mounts, and launch Rufus.

With Device, check the dropdown list of options for the USB drive (e.g. “ G:\ ” and size).

Boot section needs to point to point to the Kali Linux ISO file, which can be done by clicking the SELECT button

Depending on your configuration, you can set the Partition scheme, as well as Target system. If you are not sure, leave it as the default values.

Click the START button once ready.

6. You may get a prompt saying about ISOHybird image. Selecting ISO image, will allow you to edit the files from the Kali Linux ISO, but at the potential lose of hardware compatibility. As a result, we recommend selecting DD Image.

Note: If you select “DD Image” option, you can create another partition on the USB drive, allowing you to use the rest of the space. Start -> Run (Windows + R) -> diskmgmt.msc -> Locate the USB drive -> Right-click in “Unallocated” -> New Simple Volume -> Follow the rest of the wizard with next, next, next…

Booting A USB Drive In Windows

Depending on the system (such as BIOS or UEFI), as well as the version of Windows, and how they are each configured, you may need to re-image the USB drive.

• Master Boot Record (MBR) is often used on legacy systems that use BIOS as well as UEFI which has Compatibility Support Module (CSM) enabled
• GUID Partition Table (GPT) is required where UEFI has CSM disabled, forcing to use the modern standard

After writing the image to the USB drive, reboot Windows with the USB inserted. Depending on the motherboard manufacture, will also depend on the next stage. Some motherboard’s support a “temporary” boot menu, allowing for a one off selection. Others you need to enter BIOS/UEFI to configure it to try and boot from USB first. Entering either location, also depends on the motherboard. You can look up on the manufactures website and read the manual, try and read the screen when booting (however the text may be shown too quick or full logos used), or try common key combinations (such as ESC , F1 , F2 , F3 , F4 , F8 , F10 , F11 , F12 or DEL ).

Updated on: 2021-Sep-27
Author: g0tmi1k

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Kali linux live image

In this section, we will describe the process of installing Kali Linux on 32-bit and 64-bit hardware using the images published on the Kali Linux download page.

Content

Which Image to Choose

The Kali Linux download page offers three different image types (Installer, NetInstaller and Live) for download, each available for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

If in doubt, use the “Installer” image. You will need to check your system architecture to know whether to get 32-bit or 64-bit. If you don’t know it, you’re best to research how to find out (As a rule of thumb, if your machine’s newer than 2005 you should be okay with amd64/x64/64-bit)

Installer

This is the recommended image to install Kali Linux. It contains a local copy of the (meta)packages listed (top10, default & large) so it can be used for complete offline installations without the need of a network connection.

This image cannot be used to boot a live system (such as directly running Kali from a USB). It is only an installer image.

NetInstaller

This image can be used if you want the latest package every time you install Kali Linux or the standard installer image is too big to download. This image is very small because it does not contain a local copy of (meta)packages to install. They will all be downloaded during installation, so as a result this requires a network connection which will slow down the installation time.

Only use this image if you have reasons not to use the standard installer image above.

This image cannot be used to boot a live system (such as directly running Kali from a USB). It is only an installer image.

This image is for running Kali Linux without installing it first so it is perfect for running off a USB drive (or a CD/DVD).

You are able to install Kali Linux in its default configuration from this image but you will not be able to choose between desktop environments or to specify additional (meta)packages to install.

Which Desktop Environment and (Meta)Packages to Choose During Installation:

Each Kali Linux installer image (not live) allows the user to select the preferred “Desktop Environment (DE)” and software collection (metapackages) to be installed with operating system (Kali Linux).

We recommend sticking with the default selections and add further packages after the installation as required. Xfce is the default desktop environment, and kali-linux-top10 and kali-linux-default are the tools which get installed at the same time.

At this screen, you may wish to not install a desktop environment, then Kali Linux becomes “headless” (no graphic interface) which uses less system resources up and commonly found on servers, dropboxes, low powered ARM devices, and the cloud. This is meant for people who are completely comfortable with the command line. You are able to install multiple Desktop Environments, allowing you to switch, we wouldn’t recommend it. You may change your mind and switch desktop environments at a later date.

May wish to not to install any of the pre-defined software packages/bundles/collections (metapackages), giving you a finer degree of control of manually installing exactly what software you want. Alternatively you may want to be more prepared and install more than the default toolset. Please be aware, that there are more tools available in Kali which has be manually installed after the setup (as they all cannot be stored in the setup image).

Overall, these extra choices are for a more efficient installation experience, meant for advanced users. Please be aware of their pitfalls.

The following sections in the “Kali Documentation Installation” of this documentation, will be using the “Installer” image for the guides unless stated otherwise.

Updated on: 2021-Sep-27
Author: Re4son

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