Using Kali Linux on the public cloud

There is a number of methods available to run Kali Linux. A number of different virtualization options have come into light defining how to run operating systems in a number of different environments. This means that we are able to in some situations run Kali in various environments based on the kernel version in the OS you are using supports.

I should state that I am not advertising any products but just expressing a unique function within a feature set. The infrastructure provider in this instance of this post will be "vultr". This is where we will create our virtual machine. The difference is that this kali machine will be located on the public internet as opposed to our local VM or installed on the laptop.

One thing that is good about this cloud provider is they provide the ability to upload and download ISO's from various location's. This is shown in the following image:

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What we do here is we set a URL which contains the ISO. We then let the remote infrastructure download that ISO for us to use within our account for creating VM's.

Once the image is ready we have to create the virtual machine. This is a pretty straight forward section wherein you pick where you would like to VM to be stored and run. There is a few regions, picking one with the lowest latency is always the ideal thing to do. When it comes to the VM type I believe the VM with 2GB memory is ideal for the situation. It is important to click on upload ISO and select the ISO that we uploaded earlier.

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Another cool thing to factor in is the ability to set a IPv6 addresses on the public internet. Generally by default you get a public IPv4 address which is directly connected to the internet which is interesting for using a number of various tools. This should also go without mention that this will manifest a number of security issues.

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We set that we would like a public IPv6 address and then perform a DNS configuration setting to enable host name inline with what ever our general policy maybe. You can now proceed with the installation by clicking on the next step. The important thing is to note that you can access the VM using VNC which is one of the features provided by this cloud provider. You can access the VNC console by clicking on the VM then the view console icon on the right hand side at which point you should be presented with Kali ISO boot screen.

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There is no special configuration that is required and a normal installation should be fine unless you have specific requirements.

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Once the install is done you need to make sure you remove the installation media so that you can access the virtual machine. You can do this this by accessing the Kali VM menu, then selecting settings followed by custom settings. After this you are then able to remove the ISO as shown in the image below.

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Once the reboot has occurred you are then able to access the system. The system boots into the grub menu where it should then boot in to the first grub boot option. After this you should be presented with a login screen that you can use to access the Kali VM.

Once logged you can clearly see that you now have a public IP address available. This address allows you to access the Kali VM from the outside world. You are then able to at this point possibly use ssh or another service to configure access to the VM without having to access vultr first, as shown in the following image.

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You should ensure to enable ssh from within VNC then you can access it using a username and password. Once the initial login is complete you can then disable username and password login to only allow ssh key access.

It is important that configure iptables to filter access the VM as it is directly connected to the internet. The ideal thing would be to first configure access for SSH only, then slowly implement all alternative rules incrementaly as and when required.