Download and Install Kali Linux With Complete Guide

Kali Linux Installation Requirements

Installing Kali Linux on your computer is an easy process. First, you’ll need compatible computer hardware. Kali is supported on i386, amd64, and ARM (both armel and armhf) platforms. The hardware requirements are minimal as listed below, although better hardware will naturally provide better performance. The i386 images have a default PAE kernel, so you can run them on systems with over 4GB of RAM. Download Kali Linux and either burn the ISO to DVD, or prepare a USB stick with Kali Linux Live as the installation medium. If you do not have a DVD drive or USB port on your computer, check out the Kali Linux Network Install.

Installation Prerequisites

  • A minimum of 8 GB disk space for the Kali Linux install.
  • For i386 and amd64 architectures, a minimum of 512MB RAM.
  • CD-DVD Drive / USB boot support

Preparing for the Installation

  1. Download Kali linux.
  2. Burn The Kali Linux ISO to DVD or Image Kali Linux Live to USB.
  3. Ensure that your computer is set to boot from CD / USB in your BIOS.

Kali Linux Installation Procedure

  1. To start your installation, boot with your chosen installation medium. You should be greeted with the Kali Boot screen. Choose either Graphical or Text-Mode install. In this example, we chose a GUI install.Kali Install
  2. Select your preferred language and then your country location. You’ll also be prompted to configure your keyboard with the appropriate keymap.localechooser_languagelist_0
  3. The installer will copy the image to your hard disk, probe your network interfaces, and then prompt you to enter a hostname for your system. In the example below, we’ve entered “kali” as our hostname.netcfg_get_hostname_0
  4. Enter a robust password for the root account.kali-linux-install-02
  5. Next, set your time zone.time_zone_0
  6. The installer will now probe your disks and offer you four choices. In our example, we’re using the entire disk on our computer and not configuring LVM (logical volume manager). Experienced users can use the “Manual” partitioning method for more granular configuration options.partman-auto_init_automatically_partition_0
  7. Next, you’ll have one last chance to review your disk configuration before the installer makes irreversible changes. After you click Continue, the installer will go to work and you’ll have an almost finished installation.kali-linux-install-03
  8. Configure network mirrors. Kali uses a central repository to distribute applications. You’ll need to enter any appropriate proxy information as needed.
    NOTE! If you select “NO” in this screen, you will NOT be able to install packages from Kali repositories.
    kali-linux-install-04
  9. Next, install GRUB.kali-linux-install-05
  10. Finally, click Continue to reboot into your new Kali installation.finish-install_reboot_in_progress_0

Kali Linux Dual Boot with Windows

Installing Kali alongside a Windows installation can be quite useful. However, you need to exercise caution during the setup process. First, make sure that you’ve backed up any important data on your Windows installation. Since you’ll be modifying your hard drive, you’ll want to store this backup on external media. Once you’ve completed the backup, we recommend you peruseKali Linux Hard Disk Install, which explains the normal procedure for a basic Kali install.
In our example, we will be installing Kali Linux alongside an installation of Windows 7, which is currently taking up 100% of the disk space in our computer. We will start by resizing our current Windows partition to occupy less space and then proceed to install Kali Linux in the newly-created empty partition.
Download Kali Linux and either burn the ISO to DVD, or prepare a USB stick with Kali linux Live as the installation medium. If you do not have a DVD or USB port on your computer, check out theKali Linux Network Install. Ensure you have:
  • Minimum of 8 GB free disk space on Windows
  • CD-DVD / USB boot support

Preparing for the Installation

  1. Download Kali Linux.
  2. Burn The Kali Linux ISO to DVD or copy Kali Linux Live to USB.
  3. Ensure that your computer is set to boot from CD / USB in your BIOS.

Dual Boot Installation Procedure

  1. To start your installation, boot with your chosen installation medium. You should be greeted with the Kali Boot screen. Select Live, and you should be booted into the Kali Linux default desktop.
  2. Now launch the gparted program. We’ll use gparted to shrink the existing Windows partition to give us enough room to install Kali Linux.dual-boot-kali-01
  3. Select your Windows partition. Depending on your system, it will usually be the second, larger partition. In our example, there are two partitions; the first is the System Recovery partition, and Windows is actually installed in /dev/sda2. Resize your Windows partition and leave enough space (8GB minimum) for the Kali installation.dual-boot-kali-03
  4. Once you have resized your Windows partition, ensure you “Apply All Operations” on the hard disk. Exit gparted and reboot.
    dual-boot-kali-05

Kali Linux Installation Procedure

  1. The installation procedure from this point onwards is similar to a Kali Linux Hard Disk install, until the point of the partitioning, where you need to select “Guided – use the largest continuous free space” that you created earlier with gparted.
    dual-boot-kali-09
  2. Once the installation is done, reboot. You should be greeted with a GRUB boot menu, which will allow you to boot either into Kali or Windows.
    dual-boot-kali-11
Booting and installing Kali from a USB stick is our favorite and fastest method of getting up and running. In order to do this, we first need to create the Kali ISO image on a USB drive. If you would like to add persistence to your Kali Linux USB stick, please read the full document before proceeding to create your image.

Preparing for the USB copy

  1. Download Kali linux.
  2. If running Windows, download Win32 Disk Imager.
  3. No special software is needed for a *nix OS.
  4. A USB Key (at least 2GB capacity).

Kali Linux Live USB Install Procedure

Imaging Kali on a Windows Machine

    1. Plug your USB stick into your Windows USB port and launch the Win32 Disk Imager software
    2. Choose the Kali Linux ISO file to be imaged and verify that the USB drive to be overwritten is the correct one.
kali-usb-install-windows
  1. Once the imaging is complete, safely eject the USB drive from the Windows machine. You can now use the USB device to boot into Kali Linux.

Imaging Kali on a Linux Machine

Creating a bootable Kali Linux USB key in a Linux environment is easy. Once you’ve downloaded your Kali ISO file, you can use dd to copy it over to your USB stick as follows:
WARNING. Although the process of imaging Kali on a USB stick is very easy, you can just as easily destroy arbitrary partitions with dd if you do not understand what you are doing. Consider yourself warned.
  1. Plug in your USB device to your Linux computer’s USB port.
  2. Verify the device path of your USB storage with dmesg.
  3. Proceed to (carefully!) image the Kali ISO file on the USB device:
 dd if=kali.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=512k
That’s it, really! You can now boot into a Kali Live / Installer environment using the USB device.

Adding Persistence to Your Kali Live USB

Adding persistence (the ability to save files and changes across live boots) to your Kali Linux image can be very useful in certain situations. To make your Kali Linux USB stick persistent, follow these steps. In this example, we assume our USB drive is /dev/sdb. If you want to add persistence, you’ll need a larger USB device than we listed in our prerequisites above.
    1. Image the Kali Linux ISO to your USB stick as explained above, using the “Linux Method” and dd.
    2. Create and format an additional partition on the USB stick. In our example, we use gpartedby invoking:
       gparted /dev/sdb
    3. Your current partitioning scheme should look similar to this:usb-persistence-basic-partitioning
    4. Proceed to format a new partition of your desired size to be used for persistence. In our example, we used all the remaining space available. Make sure the volume label of the newly created partition is persistence, and format it using the ext4 filesystem.
      usb-persistence-creating-partition
    5. Once the process is complete, mount your persistence USB partition using the following commands:
       mkdir /mnt/usb
      mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/usb
      echo ”/ union” >> /mnt/usb/persistence.conf
      umount /mnt/usb
    6. Plug the USB stick into the computer you want to boot up. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from your USB device. When the Kali Linux boot screen is displayed, select “Live boot” from the menu (don’t press enter), and press the tab button. This will allow you to edit the boot parameters. Add the word “persistence” to the end of the boot parameter line each time you want to mount your persistent storage.
      usb-persistence
At times, we have sensitive data we would prefer to encrypt using full disk encryption. With the Kali Installer, you can initiate an LVM encrypted install on either Hard Disk or USB drives. The installation procedure is very similar to a “normal Kali Linux Install”, with the exception of choosing an Encrypted LVM partition during the installation process.

Kali Linux Encrypted Installation Requirements

Installing Kali Linux on your computer is an easy process. First, you’ll need compatible computer hardware. The hardware requirements are minimal as listed below, though better hardware will naturally provide better performance. The i386 images have a default PAE kernel, so you can run them on systems with over 4GB of RAM. Download Kali Linux and either burn the ISO to DVD, orprepare a USB stick with Kali Linux Live as the installation medium.

Installation Prerequisites

  • A minimum of 8 GB disk space for the Kali Linux install.
  • For i386 and amd64 architectures, a minimum of 512MB RAM.
  • CD-DVD Drive / USB boot support

Preparing for the Installation

  1. Download Kali linux.
  2. Burn The Kali linux ISO to DVD or Image Kali Linux Live to USB.
  3. Ensure that your computer is set to boot from CD / USB in your BIOS.

Kali Linux Installation Procedure

  1. To start your installation, boot with your chosen installation medium. You should be greeted with the Kali Linux boot menu. Choose a Graphical or a Text-Mode install. In this example, we chose a GUI install.Kali Install
  2. Select your preferred language and then your country location. You’ll also be prompted to configure your keyboard with the appropriate keymap.localechooser_languagelist_0
  3. The installer will copy the image to your hard disk, probe your network interfaces, and then prompt you to enter a hostname for your system. In the example below, we’ve entered “kali” as the hostname.netcfg_get_hostname_0
  4. Enter a robust password for the root account.kali-linux-install-02
  5. Next, set your time zone.time_zone_0
  6. The installer will now probe your disks and offer you four choices. For an Encrypted LVM install, choose the “Guided – use entire disk and set up encrypted LVM” option as shown below.partman-auto_init_automatically_partition_0
  7. Choose the destination drive to install Kali. In this case, we chose a USB drive destination. We will use this USB drive to boot an encrypted instance of Kali.kali-linux-install-03
  8. Confirm your partitioning scheme and continue the installation.kali-linux-install-03
  9. Next, you will be asked for an encryption password. You will need to remember this password and use it each time to boot the encrypted instance of Kali Linux.kali-linux-install-03
  10. Configure network mirrors. Kali uses a central repository to distribute applications. You’ll need to enter any appropriate proxy information as needed.
    NOTE! If you select “NO” in this screen, you will NOT be able to install packages from the Kali repositories.
    kali-linux-install-04
  11. Next, install GRUB.kali-linux-install-05
  12. Finally, click Continue to reboot into your new Kali installation. If you used a USB device as a destination drive, make sure you enable booting from USB devices in your BIOS. You will be asked for the encryption password you set earlier on every boot.finish-install_reboot_in_progress_0

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