Kali Linux Management (en)

How to tame the dragon in “n simple steps”

This is a translation of my German Medium post “Kali Linux Management”.

Introduction

I’ve been working with Kali Linux for several years and before that I’ve been using BackTrack. This are already over 8 years. During this time, I have killed BackTrack and Kali countless times. Mostly, not much has been lost because I still had access to the data or it was on another machine. Still, I had to reinstall Kali. Kali usually runs in a virtual machine and you can cut corners with snapshots, templates or automatic installation.

Installation

I run Kali mainly under VirtualBox. Of course, any other hypervisor that works with Debian works as well. But I leave this choice to you.

I install Kali from the weekly ISO . The packages are reasonably up-to-date and after the installation only a few updates have to be loaded and installed. This saves time a lot. This is sometimes faster than updating an older snapshot.

If you prefer a more elegant way, you can also use the automatic installation. In the boot menu, press Escape to get into the bootpromt.

Boot menu of the Kali Live CD

Bootpromt

Then start the installation with the following command using a (German) preseed configuration. The long link can be made more handy with any link shortener.

install auto=true priority=critical preseed/url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/honze-net/kali-linux-custom-preseed/master/kali-preseed-custom.cfg

I have derived my (German) version of the preseed configuration from this (English) configuration. Once the installation has been completed, you will be greeted with Kali’s login screen.

Note: If you want to go a step further, you can also boot Kali Linux over PXE and pass the preseed configuration there. Then you save the manual work in the boot menu.

I would like to use the Mini ISO for the installation. So the weekly ISO does not have to be downloaded. But for some reason this does not work properly. The installation runs fine, but the machine does not boot properly afterwards.

Update

I update my Kali machines with apt update && apt upgrade -y && apt dist-upgrade -y && apt autoremove . Of course you can also use "GNOME Software".

Installation of the guest extensions

Kali Linux adds guest extensions for VirtualBox, which can easily be installed: apt install virtualbox-guest-x11

Export / Snapshot

Depending on your personal preference, you can now export the machine or take a snapshot. An import of a machine or restore a snapshot is relatively fast. No installation will probably be faster.

Customizing

After the installation and the first backup by exporting (or snapshot), I customize Kali Linux to meet my requirements. I install more packages, polish the surface and then make a backup again. I only need to pull these out of the shelf, if I have killed my Kali again. The data I work with is on other machines.

My adjustments include:

• Tilix (formerly Terminix) apt install tilix
• Paper Icon Set
• Wallpaper
• Global dark theme
• Disabling all Gnome shell extensions except for “Alternatetab”

Overview when switching

start menu

Outlook

Since the customization after the installation does not take long, I make it still by hand. However, this could also be done with a shell script. This could also be specified in the preseed file and incorporated into the ISO. Then you only insert the ISO and the rest works automagically.