Live Usb Kali

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Eliz Cisneroz

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Aug 4, 2024, 1:26:35 PM8/4/24
to hampmachoma
Iwant to know, if i will make live kali persistence usb and put it into my laptop will it use hard drive memory? Because my 500 gb space is emtpy and want to make kali live usb to use that free memory.

Kali can be very picky on what you make the usb with i have made it with rufus and win32 and they both have successfully made but they both have failed before. I think it might be a problem with the live usb.


I wanted to try and give Kali linux a shot installed to bare metal on my Framework but ran into a problem right after making the USB media. Both with the just the installer image and live image when I go to boot from the USB on my laptop it goes directly to a blank grub screen exactly as described in these other two examples:


Neither thread seemed to get to an actual solution. I did find this guide by another Framework community member so clearly it did work at some point, as another example for the year before also had a forum member report a successful install:


Yep, still getting the same behaviour. Flashed a fresh USB just now just to be sure cause I noticed those instructions show using the conv=fsync flag using the dd method. But same as before, the USB boots and works just fine on my desktop but on my Framework I just get that black screen and cursor.


This is all it took for me, and I was able to get to the graphical Kali Linux installation prompt. Something between PopOS and Kali Linux seems to screw with the bootloader. Grub is a finnicky thing. I hope this helps in the future.


I just wasted almost a day on this problem. It looks like the issue is caused in part by the existence of /.disk/info on the PopOS recovery partition that gets created as part of their standard install. I looked through the Kali grub configs and saw this:


Edit: Looks like at a minimum it causes the recovery image checksum process to fail during boot since the file is obviously no longer there; it was able to boot successfully despite the error message though.


I mean that I don't want to dual boot kali along with Windows, so due to curiousity, almost everyday, I simply boot into live mode.But I am worried about that booting my laptop almost everyday from a usb flash drive doesn't affect my system in any way?


You should not use Kali as your day to day operating system. That is not what is meant to be. From a security standpoint, it is a horrible idea to use Kali (which on the live version has only a root user and outdated software that has no security fixes applied unless you are willing to update before every use). Such a machine in day to day use can be used as a pivot point into your network and/or your windows on the same machine.


If you are unfamiliar with Linux generally, if you do not have at least a basic level of competence in administering a system, if you are looking for a Linux distribution to use as a learning tool to get to know your way around Linux, or if you want a distro that you can use as a general purpose desktop installation, Kali Linux is probably not what you are looking for.


I have already made a bootable drive and want to know what should i do next to run kali. Should i just plug in the usb drive and restart the laptop or should i also have to change some settings in system BIOS? I also want to know that how will i revert back to my windows 10 OS? Please help asap.


Thanks for answering quickly but i m a liitle confused. I saw some videos of people changing some settings like legacy support and secure boot in boot options and they are also changing the boot order....or something like that. Should i also do that?


I know if you boot kali from a USB live mode, that everything is run off of RAM. However, if you were to run kali through whonix using the live-boot iso in virtualbox is Kali and whonix both run completely off of RAM in the VM?


debian installed on USB then install whonix+vbox or kvm then install live-mode in debian host after that your host can run as a live USB similar to the scenario you have mentioned (running only in RAMs)


Thanks for replying, I am kind of confused if you dont mind clarifying a little. Lets say I am running Ubuntu as my host OS. Then I install virtualbox in Ubuntu. Then I install whonix in virtualbox, then I would boot a live kali USB/iso in virtualbox correct and adjust the network settings. Is that how it would work.

I was confused when you said install live-mode in debain host. If my above scenario is not correct and the kali VM would not be running completely from RAM in virtualbox if you could point me to description/how to explaining of what you mean and or how to accomplish it I would greatly appreciate it


Some of the reasons for using a Live USB are:

You use all of your system resources (CPU, RAM, GPU, etc)

You take no space of your Hard Drive for it.

No tunnelling your Internal Wireless Adapter into eth0

You can take your OS to any PC you use.


First, you'll need a program to install Kali on your USB drive and make it bootable. My program of choice is Universal USB Installer, as it's painfully easy to use and it has a direct link to many Linux distros download page within the program.


Search for this button, and get the program. Once you run it, you'll see a disclaimer page. Accept it (or read it first, if you feel like it), and you'll be presented with the configuration section (after a few seconds). Choose Kali from the dropdown menu:


If your system is 64 bit, you may want the 64 bit ISO, but it doesn't ensure you portability to all the PC's you find. If you're not sure whether your PC is 32 or 64 bit, choose the 32 bit ISO. It'll work for both architectures.


You can choose Direct download, but if you have a pretty slow and unreliable connection, download it via Torrent. If you never downloaded something via Torrent, you could look it up. It's pretty damn simple.


I'd recommend to check the box that formats your USB drive. That'll wipe your whole USB drive, make sure you back up everything you had there before proceeding. It'll make a quick format, so there's no reason to avoid this.


If everything went as expected, you'll see this, and you have a USB you can Live boot you Kali from. You may have to do a little tweaking on your BIOS for it to work, but I don't know how to cover every BIOS on a single tutorial.


You liked to Live boot from USB, but you want to save changes made into your OS, or just files (such as .pcap files) into your USB drive? You'll need to set up Persistence. Your USB drive must have 8 GB+ of storage space.


Now, if you boot up to Live USB Persistence, you'll be able to save stuff everywhere on your Linux filesystem, and every configuration you make locally will be available everywhere you plug it in :)


I also hope it's not over explained (or under explained). I've tried to keep it as simple as I could without adding loads of screenies as if it were going to be read by dumb people. But I'll gladly answer any questions related to this in the comments :)


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Awesome post KITTEN. I think you gave the exact amount of detail necessary. Can't wait to read your partition guide - I've been planning on triple boot my systems for a while but lacked the exact know how.


Oh, maybe that description at the beginning was misleading, I just mentioned my setup as a comment. When I talk about the Linux partition guide, I just meant I wanted to show how to partition the USB drive properly starting from Linux, just as I showed a Quick Linux guide for installing Kali on a USB stick.


Would you want a tutorial on how to install Kali on your machine and make it dual-boot (or triple, quad, etc)? That's entirely a different story, I didn't write about it because you risk of losing everything on your HDD if anything goes wrong.


hey when i create the partition on the usb, my computer is not able to read my usb. When i take away the partition you talked about above, my computer is able to read my usb, but then without the partition, i cant save anything. To wrap it up, make partition, computer cant read my usb, when i take away the partition, my computer is able to read my usb but i cant save anything in kali linux.


I am just wondering why not to boot your system with Kali Live CD and install it in USB instead of HDD? I am just wondering why not. Could there be some issues if I start moving my USB through different PCs? I am not sure how kernel would deal with that in the long term solution.


If you set up Persistence and select that option when booting up on any PC, you'll get to boot it just as you left it last time you used it, but it'll load drivers for the PC you're using everytime :)


What this tutorial is about is installing the "Kali Live CD" on a USB, not the OS. If you installed the OS, then your PC depends on your USB drive to boot up. That's pretty unreliable, I wouldn't reccomend it.


Great tutorial! I don't think that there is a tutorial on Null-byte on setting up Kali Live. I also like it that you are including a section on setting up persistency, so that you can return to your OS the same it was before!


I know there are reasons to install a proprietary driver for Kali, but don't go crazy on that, there' still loads of things you can do if you can't install them. Or Google your problem, I found this article from BlackOps that seems to cover what you want to do pretty well.


But as far as I knew, if you plug a USB3 into a USB2 port, it'll work at USB2 speed. And if you plug a USB2 into a USB3 port, it'll work, because of backward compatibility, but at USB2 speed, still. I guess I'll only know for sure when I get one of those 3.0 USB drives :)

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