Making a bootable USB flash drive for Kali Linux

[Trenix25]

I have been trying to create a bootable USB flash drive for Kali Linux for probably well over a week now. At this point I think I might really like to choke the living $#() out of some of the developers of Kali Linux. The installation media doesn't work properly. It refuses to correctly install a bootable version of Kali Linux on a new flash drive. There is nothing wrong with the flash drive. There is something wrong with Kali Linux. The flash drive MUST use one and only one partition and MUST use a dos mbr type partition table. The file system MUST use ext4 and MUST be created by mke2fs from the most current version of Kali Linux. It MUST NOT use a live USB file system from the developers at Kali Linux. This MUST be done on a USB flash drive instead of a hard drive. I have gone around and around with Copilot about this. I have used debootstrap from Debian 11.7 to install the base system for Kali Linux because the Kali installation media doesn't work properly, even though the download was verified with SHA256. I have tried grub-install, but it does not recognize an ext4 file system, even with orphan_file/FEATURE_C12 turned off. I used grub-mkconfig to create /boot/grub/grub.cfg and some other bios installer to add core.img. I have installed the mbr.bin file from /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr/ . I had to manually copy the files into /boot/grub/i386-pc/ myself. It MUST NOT use UEFI. It MUST use a dos mbr type partition table. If only the Kali Linux developers would fix the bugs in their installer software. Apart from the endless merry-go-round from Copilot, can anyone provide step by step instructions so VMware's VMplayer will recognize and boot the operating system on my flash drive? I have used /usr/bin/dd to copy it to a file, but VMplayer insists that there is no operating system present and tries to perform a network boot. The only partition on the drive is set to be bootable. I have even added firmware = "bios" to the Linux Boot/Linux Boot.vmx file. Would someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong before I have a mental breakdown?

Signed

Matthew Campbell

 

[Brickwizard]

It would be much easier to install Parrot, the tools are all the same you can install the home edition and get a nice stable daily drive, and add the tool pack by sudo apt install parrot-tools-full

or any of the other now around 20 pen testing distributions

 

[dos2unix]

Normally I don't format the USB drives. I usually use something like "dd" to burn the image to the hard drive.
The image already has the filesystem(s) on it. So whatever formatting you're doing is going to get overwritten
when you rurn the image to the thumb drive.

You are right about one thing, The boot iso's typically do not like paritions.
Rather, they already have filesystem partitions in the iso image. You can't have
/dev/sda1, sda2, sd3, etc... because the iso image also has sad, sdb, sdc, they will conflict with each other.

There are ways around this... ventoy puts the images in their little containers, but that's different from
filesystem partitions.

 

[Trenix25]

Normally I don't format the USB drives. I usually use something like "dd" to burn the image to the hard drive.
The image already has the filesystem(s) on it. So whatever formatting you're doing is going to get overwritten
when you rurn the image to the thumb drive.

You are right about one thing, The boot iso's typically do not like paritions.
Rather, they already have filesystem partitions in the iso image. You can't have
/dev/sda1, sda2, sd3, etc... because the iso image also has sad, sdb, sdc, they will conflict with each other.

There are ways around this... ventoy puts the images in their little containers, but that's different from
filesystem partitions.

This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, a live file system iso file.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[Trenix25]

It would be much easier to install Parrot, the tools are all the same you can install the home edition and get a nice stable daily drive, and add the tool pack by sudo apt install parrot-tools-full

or any of the other now around 20 pen testing distributions

I'll look into that. If the installation process is this buggy I can only wonder about the rest of it.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[dos2unix]

Kali runs fine in VMwarePlayer. It boot's directly from the iso. It doesn't like EFI.

 

[Brickwizard]

I'll look into that. If the installation process is this buggy I can only wonder about the rest of it.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

thats why i suggested the Home edition and add the tools, as it is a full distribution and should be as easy as mint to install

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I have used /usr/bin/dd to copy it to a file, but VMplayer insists that there is no operating system present and tries to perform a network boot.

Are you trying to install Kali from USB into VM? or Do you need USB to install to HDD/SSD on host PC?

For VM you don't need USB, just ISO is enough.

 

[Trenix25]

Are you trying to install Kali from USB into VM? or Do you need USB to install to HDD/SSD on host PC?

For VM you don't need USB, just ISO is enough.

I was trying to install Kali Linux to a bootable USB flash drive so I could use it as a maintenance system. Things do eventually go wrong and it's very helpful to be able to fix things when they do. I'm trying to get ParrotOS installed now. Kali looks like a buggy mess.

I'm wanting to get Linux installed on a flash drive so I can boot from that instead of from the hard drive. It will give me the option to boot from the flash drive to the hard drive, or to boot to the flash drive.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[dos2unix]

I'm wanting to get Linux installed on a flash drive so I can boot from that instead of from the hard drive. It will give me the option to boot from the flash drive to the hard drive, or to boot to the flash drive.

Do you have two USB ports?

Download the iso to your computer. Then use dd or etcher, or whatever you like to burn the installer
to the first USB drive.

Boot from the first USB drive, and plug in the second USB drive.
Install to the second USB drive. It doesn't have to be formatted, it just has to be big enough to install to.
For Kali I recommend at least a16GB at the minimum. A 32GB. would be better.

Shutdown. Unplug the first USB drive, and plugin the second USB drive.
Boot from the second USB drive.

 

[Trenix25]

Do you have two USB ports?

Download the iso to your computer. Then use dd or etcher, or whatever you like to burn the installer
to the first USB drive.

Boot from the first USB drive, and plug in the second USB drive.
Install to the second USB drive. It doesn't have to be formatted, it just has to be big enough to install to.
For Kali I recommend at least a16GB at the minimum. A 32GB. would be better.

Shutdown. Unplug the first USB drive, and plugin the second USB drive.
Boot from the second USB drive.

I have four USB ports on the front and another four USB ports on the back. Half are USB 2.0 and the other half are USB 3.0.

The USB flash drives are 32 GB a piece. I have tried to install Kali to the flash drive and make it bootable without success. Now I'm going to try Parrot Linux instead.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[JasKinasis]

In all my years, dd has never failed me.

dd if=/path/to/image.iso of=/dev/sdx bs=4M status=progress

Where /path/to/image.iso is the path to the .iso and /dev/sdx is the device ID for the thumb drive.
Using status=progress allows you to see some progress information whilst dd is copying data.
Works every time for me!

 

[dos2unix]

I have tried to install Kali to the flash drive and make it bootable without success.

Exactly how are you "making it bootable"?

 

[Trenix25]

Exactly how are you "making it bootable"?

I'm trying to install Linux on the flash drive so I can use it to perform maintenance on the main system as needed. Then I need to boot from the flash drive to the main hard drive. I do this by telling grub on the flash drive to load the correct files and use a file system with a certain UUID as the root file system.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[Trenix25]

Things aren't working out with Parrot Linux so far either. I'm having trouble selecting a location after this picture so I can finish writing this on both sides of this picture. Hmmm. I'm using a 32 GB flash drive which shows up here as /dev/sdd. I'll try to install to a hard drive, but never the internal hard drive, and tell it to install a legacy boot to a hard drive with a gpt partition table, if it will let me get away with that. Then I can copy the necessary files to another flash drive that already works and boot from that. Otherwise I'll have to premount a flash drive with synchronous I/O so it doesn't hang like that which is what is believed to have caused this installation to fail. It all depends on how well the developers did their jobs and what I can get away with doing. I'll keep trying to find a way to get around this mess. And it is indeed a big mess. Why can't things just work. Parrot says it needs an 8 MB file system for /boot. That's just bull. I made a /boot partition with 200 MB and much of it was used with just one copy of the initrd file. It will need at least two to four of those. Copilot recommended using the larger size. Now I plan to use at least 1 GB instead.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[APTI]

I have been trying to create a bootable USB flash drive for Kali Linux for probably well over a week now. At this point I think I might really like to choke the living $#() out of some of the developers of Kali Linux. The installation media doesn't work properly. It refuses to correctly install a bootable version of Kali Linux on a new flash drive. There is nothing wrong with the flash drive. There is something wrong with Kali Linux. The flash drive MUST use one and only one partition and MUST use a dos mbr type partition table. The file system MUST use ext4 and MUST be created by mke2fs from the most current version of Kali Linux. It MUST NOT use a live USB file system from the developers at Kali Linux. This MUST be done on a USB flash drive instead of a hard drive. I have gone around and around with Copilot about this. I have used debootstrap from Debian 11.7 to install the base system for Kali Linux because the Kali installation media doesn't work properly, even though the download was verified with SHA256. I have tried grub-install, but it does not recognize an ext4 file system, even with orphan_file/FEATURE_C12 turned off. I used grub-mkconfig to create /boot/grub/grub.cfg and some other bios installer to add core.img. I have installed the mbr.bin file from /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr/ . I had to manually copy the files into /boot/grub/i386-pc/ myself. It MUST NOT use UEFI. It MUST use a dos mbr type partition table. If only the Kali Linux developers would fix the bugs in their installer software. Apart from the endless merry-go-round from Copilot, can anyone provide step by step instructions so VMware's VMplayer will recognize and boot the operating system on my flash drive? I have used /usr/bin/dd to copy it to a file, but VMplayer insists that there is no operating system present and tries to perform a network boot. The only partition on the drive is set to be bootable. I have even added firmware = "bios" to the Linux Boot/Linux Boot.vmx file. Would someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong before I have a mental breakdown?

Signed

Matthew Campbell

why are you trying to use Kali. Obviously that distro is not for you. If you can't get it to boot then you do not possess the skill to use it. Kali is strictly for penetration testing it is not meant as a daily use distro. What you are looking at you should stick to the normal mainstream distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, or even mint.

 

[Trenix25]

why are you trying to use Kali. Obviously that distro is not for you. If you can't get it to boot then you do not possess the skill to use it. Kali is strictly for penetration testing it is not meant as a daily use distro. What you are looking at you should stick to the normal mainstream distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, or even mint.

Ok, I really don't need to be insulted. It's Kali's fault, not mine. Ubuntu only updates twice a year, for general updates anyway. I refuse to use Mint. I will install some kind of cybersecurity distribution so I can study this field. As shown in the post right above your reply I'm currently trying to install Parrot instead of Kali. I do in fact have the necessary technical aptitude to learn about cybersecurity. I really don't understand why people are in such a hurry to bash any effort to install and use a pentesting distribution. They can be useful too. It is not wrong to use them.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[APTI]

Ok, I really don't need to be insulted. It's Kali's fault, not mine. Ubuntu only updates twice a year, for general updates anyway. I refuse to use Mint. I will install some kind of cybersecurity distribution so I can study this field. As shown in the post right above your reply I'm currently trying to install Parrot instead of Kali. I do in fact have the necessary technical aptitude to learn about cybersecurity. I really don't understand why people are in such a hurry to bash any effort to install and use a pentesting distribution. They can be useful too. It is not wrong to use them.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

I did not mean to insult you. it is fact that kali is not made for anything but penetration testing. many people don't understand that and mistakenly go for kali. these penetration testing platforms are not meant for daily use. Once you wrap your head around that things will work easy for you. We want to point you in the right direction, don't get offended because you are facing the wrong direction and we turn you in the right one.

learn parrot and kali. I have kali but not for daily use. Part of the learning process is learning what the correct tool is.

again, not bashing you, or insulting you. sorry if you took it that way, just trying to make sure you are not pointed in the wrong direction which you were. we are not bashing things just pointing out that using a screw driver to hammer in a nail is not the right way. It may work but still not a good thing.

 

[Trenix25]

I did not mean to insult you. it is fact that kali is not made for anything but penetration testing. many people don't understand that and mistakenly go for kali. these penetration testing platforms are not meant for daily use. Once you wrap your head around that things will work easy for you. We want to point you in the right direction, don't get offended because you are facing the wrong direction and we turn you in the right one.

learn parrot and kali. I have kali but not for daily use. Part of the learning process is learning what the correct tool is.

again, not bashing you, or insulting you. sorry if you took it that way, just trying to make sure you are not pointed in the wrong direction which you were. we are not bashing things just pointing out that using a screw driver to hammer in a nail is not the right way. It may work but still not a good thing.

I actually am pointing in the right direction. I have no intention on buying another computer just so I can have one that stays stuck with Debian 11.7 for all eternity, since it cannot be updated, and then use another one for Parrot. I can't do everything from a VM either. Parrot should be useful as an every day system. I am determined to have a pentesting distribution as my main system. I will not budge on that. It is not wrong. I plan to install Parrot instead of Kali. Parrot promotes itself as a secure system for every day use.

I tried to update my Debian 11 system to Debian 12 and it broke it. I had to restore it from a backup. Debian 12 does not have kdenlive, which I really need.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

 

[APTI]

I actually am pointing in the right direction. I have no intention on buying another computer just so I can have one that stays stuck with Debian 11.7 for all eternity, since it cannot be updated, and then use another one for Parrot. I can't do everything from a VM either. Parrot should be useful as an every day system. I am determined to have a pentesting distribution as my main system. I will not budge on that. It is not wrong. I plan to install Parrot instead of Kali. Parrot promotes itself as a secure system for every day use.

I tried to update my Debian 11 system to Debian 12 and it broke it. I had to restore it from a backup. Debian 12 does not have kdenlive, which I really need.

Signed,

Matthew Campbell

debian is known for breaking. but I think you are using a screw driver to hammer nails here. But you have the freedom to not listen to experts and go your own way. But maybe you forgot fedora and ubuntu are great for what you want. Feel free to close your mind that is your right. But I feel you will end up spending more time keeping things working than with other distros. Feel free to prove me wrong, I like to learn.