Kali live USB with persistence questions

I have been working on a little project that I am having trouble with. I am trying to create a live USB of Kali that I can plug in when I need to use it for whatever. I am a cyber security student and have a competition coming up through the school where I will need to use several of the tools built into Kali.

What I would like to do is to create an actual live USB. I use Rufus to flash my USB drive and I use the option for persistence. What happens is that the drive is setup with 2 different partitions, one that is 4.3 GB give or take for Kali and the rest of the drive is for persistence. I would really like to be able to update Kali as well as add additional tools as I go but since the partition is only big enough for the OS, I keep getting error messages that the disk is out of space.

I want to be able to install updates and add the extra tools as well as have the persistence option available. Essentially run Kali like it would be on a hard drive but keep it on a USB drive.

Is this possible? I am using a 16 GB USB drive currently. If I need a larger one that is not a problem. I don't think the size of the drive is the issue, I think the issue is the size of the partition when I flash the OS to the USB drive.

Thanks.

Slpit it down the middle 50/50

If I were you I spend a little on a larger drive. I was able to get a Samsung FIT 64Gb Flash Drive that is the size of a wireless mouse dongle for ~$15. Either way, if you want persistence you are going to need more than 16 Gb. I am/was in the same place as you, a cyber-sec student that wanted "Kali on the go". https://amzn.to/3E7Lkq6 this is the link to the drive on Amazon, currently $12.50! Make sure if you are creating a USB Live Boot that you use the Kali-Live Image. On Kali.org under installations, go to USB and it will take you to the live image. Use Rufus to image your (bigger) USB and you will be able to add 32Gb of persistence with no problem. The only thing that will limit the OS's performance is the USB port you put it into, which is why I suggested that Samsung drive because its speeds, are great and it's not going to be hanging off the side of a laptop and if need be, it is concealable. Anyways, good luck and if you ever get the chance, if you have an old laptop lying around, just install Kali on there, the performance will be much better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sac1911

I have been working on a little project that I am having trouble with. I am trying to create a live USB of Kali that I can plug in when I need to use it for whatever. I am a cyber security student and have a competition coming up through the school where I will need to use several of the tools built into Kali.

What I would like to do is to create an actual live USB. I use Rufus to flash my USB drive and I use the option for persistence. What happens is that the drive is setup with 2 different partitions, one that is 4.3 GB give or take for Kali and the rest of the drive is for persistence. I would really like to be able to update Kali as well as add additional tools as I go but since the partition is only big enough for the OS, I keep getting error messages that the disk is out of space.

I want to be able to install updates and add the extra tools as well as have the persistence option available. Essentially run Kali like it would be on a hard drive but keep it on a USB drive.

Is this possible? I am using a 16 GB USB drive currently. If I need a larger one that is not a problem. I don't think the size of the drive is the issue, I think the issue is the size of the partition when I flash the OS to the USB drive.

Thanks.

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I have had issues booting Kali Linux with updates and files saved.

Here's what worked for me.

Reformat and delete everything from the USB drive.

Instead of using rufus, flash the USB etcher. You will be able to partition accordingly later.

Once you have flashed the drive, restart the computer and boot from the first partition.

Click on Live USB Persistence option.

Open the root terminal.

Type fdisk -l to see your disk and partition details.

Copy /dev/sd* from your disk data and type fdisk /dev/sd* into the terminal.
------ The asterisk denotes the number on your machine as it varies for different computers.

Type m to see a list of commands and their descriptions.

Next, you'll want to list free unpartitioned space so type F into the terminal.

The space should appear and from there, you will want to add a new partition space so type n into the terminal.

After you typed in n, you will need to type p to print the partition tables and confirm the changes.

By then, you will have created a 3rd partition of which the 1st partition consists of roughly 4 GB for the linux OS, 2nd partition of roughly floating 1 MB unused space, and 3rd partition for unused space for updates and files you want to save.

Type w to write the partition tables to the disc and finish the process.

Type fdisk -l to confirm the changes; there should be three partition tables.

If you see three partition tables, you may proceed to typing mfk3,ext3 -L persistence /dev/sda(or b or c instead of a depending on your machine; please refer to the 3rd partition table found in previous diskscan)3 (or 4 or 5; again please refer to previous fdisk scan. It should be largest unused space).

Once that process finishes, type e2label /dev/sda3 (the partition space you used) persistence

Type mkdir -p /mnt/usd and press enter

Type mount /dev/sda3 (the partition space you used) /mnt/usb/ and press enter

Type echo "/ union" > /mnt/usb/persistence.conf and press enter

Type umount /dev/sda3 (the partition space you used) and press enter

By now, you should be able to boot into Kali Linux Persistence with all the updates and files saved on that partition.

Let's test it.

Create a folder on your desktop and reboot the computer.

Relog into Kali Linux Persistence and check if the file remains.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need further assistance.

Just put the ISO into the USB.

this also happen to my btw thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sac1911

I have been working on a little project that I am having trouble with. I am trying to create a live USB of Kali that I can plug in when I need to use it for whatever. I am a cyber security student and have a competition coming up through the school where I will need to use several of the tools built into Kali.

What I would like to do is to create an actual live USB. I use Rufus to flash my USB drive and I use the option for persistence. What happens is that the drive is setup with 2 different partitions, one that is 4.3 GB give or take for Kali and the rest of the drive is for persistence. I would really like to be able to update Kali as well as add additional tools as I go but since the partition is only big enough for the OS, I keep getting error messages that the disk is out of space.

I want to be able to install updates and add the extra tools as well as have the persistence option available. Essentially run Kali like it would be on a hard drive but keep it on a USB drive.

Is this possible? I am using a 16 GB USB drive currently. If I need a larger one that is not a problem. I don't think the size of the drive is the issue, I think the issue is the size of the partition when I flash the OS to the USB drive.

Thanks.

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How about doing something really cool? Build your Live USB boot using Ventoy? https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

All you need to do is install Ventoy onto the USB drive then drag (copy) the Kali Live ISO file on to the Ventory USB drive and then you can follow the instructions on creating persistence using Ventoy. If you aren't going to use the Ventoy USB for anything other than Kali then I would create a persistence file as large as you want / as large as you can with the remaining space. Ventoy has a zip file that you can download that has a bunch of pre-built persistence files. They only go up to a few GB, but they have a tool that you can use to expand the persistence file.

One of the benefits of doing this is that you could delete the Kali 2021.4 ISO and then copy a new Kali 2022.1 ISO in it's place and still have it linked to the persistence file.

Check it out!

HTH,

Robert