Kali Linux Installation and Configuration

kali linux - Installation and Configuration

Kali Linux is one of the best security packages of an ethical hacker, containing a set tools divided by the categories. It is an open source and its official webpages is https://www.kali.org.

Generally, Kali Linux can be installed in a machine as an Operationg system, ad a virtual machine which we will discuss in the following section.Installing kali linux is a practical option as it provides more options to work and combine the tools.You can also create a live boot CD and USB all this can be found in the following link https://www.kali.org/downloads/

BackTrack was the old version of kali Linux distributio. The latest release is kali 2016.1 and it is updated very often.

To install Kali Linux -

First ,we will download the virtual box and install it.
Later, we will download the install kali linux distribution.

Download and install the virtual box

A virtual Box is particularly useful when you want to test something on kali linux that you are unsure of.Running kali linux on a Virtual Box is safe when you want to experiment with unknown packages or when you wnat to test a code.

With the help of a Virtual Box , you can install Kali Linux on your system (not directly in your hard disk) alongside you primary OS which can MAC or Windows or another flavor of Linux.

Let's understand how you can download and install the Virtual Box on Your system

STEP 1 - To Download ,go to https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads . Depending on your operation system , select the right package. In this case, it will be the first on for Windows as shown in the following screenshot

STEP 2 -Click Next :-

STEP 3- The Next page will give you options to choose the location. In this case, Let us leave it us default and click Next.

STEP 4 - Click Next and the following Custom setup screenshot pops up.Select the features you want to be installed and click next.

STEP 5 - Click Yes to proceed with the installation.

STEP 6 - The Ready to install screen pops up.Click install.

STEP 7 - Click the Finish button.

The Virtual Box application will now opne as shown in the following screenshot.Now we are ready to install the rest of the hosts for this manual and this is also recommended for proffessional usage.

Install Kali Linux

Now that we have successfully installed the Virtual Box, let's move on to the next step and install Kali Linux ,

STEP 1 - Download the Kali Linux package from its official website https://www.kali.org/downloads/

STEP 2 - Click Virtual Box - New as shown in the following screenshot.

STEP 3 - Choose the right virtual hard disk file and click Open.

STEP 4 - The following screenshot pops up.Click the Create button.

STEP 5 - Start Kali Linux OS. The default username is root and password is toor.

Update Kali

It is important to keep updation Kali Linux and its tools to the new versions, to remain functional .Following are the steps to update Kali.

STEP 1 - Go to Application - Terminal. Then, type "apt-get update" and the update will take place as show in the following screenshot.

STEP 2 - Now to upgrade the tools, type "apt-get upgrade" and the new packages will be download.

STEP 3 - It will ask if you want to continue Type "Y" and "Enter".

STEP 4 - To upgrade to a newer version of Operatin System, type "apt-get distupgrade".

Laboratory Setup

In this sectio , we will set up another testing machine to perform the tests with the help of tools of Kali Linux.

STEP 1 - Download metasploitable, which is a Linux machine.It can be download from the official webpage of Rapid7 https://information.rapid7.com/metasploitable-download.html