Tiny partition full after botched(?) update of Kali Live with persistence

So this is technically related to the initial install of Kali, but it is closely related, so I hope this is the right forum to post it in. I've been running a Kali live installation (with persistence) from a USB drive for a while now, and the other day I got a prompt on the desktop that there was an OS update available. I clicked the "reboot and update" button, and at some point during the update (after it had updated many packages) the progress just stopped. After waiting a few hours I rebooted, figuring it would hose the system and I would just have to reimage the UDB. Much to my amazement, everything worked fine on reboot, but I now get a warning message that /dev/sdc2 is almost full, and indeed it is - the partition is only 721 KB, with only 20 KB free. It is the second of three partitions on the USB drive:

DEVICE	VOLUME NAME	TYPE	SIZE	MOUNTED AT
/dev/sdc1	Kali Live	Hidden HPFS/NTFS	2.8 GB	/lib/live/mount/persistence/sdc1
/dev/sdc2	Kali Live	FAT12	721 KB	/media/root/Kali Live
/dev/sdc3	persistence	Ext4	125 GB	/lib/live/mount/persistence/sdc3

FWIW, Kali's "files" GUI sees /dev/sdc2 as a USB drive, which can be ejected. It contains two directories: "System Volume Information", with files named IndexerVolumeGuid and WPSettings.dat, and "efi/boot", with files bootia32.efi and bootx64.efi.

So my questions are, do OS updates work with a Kali live setup in the same way as a "normal" setup, and does the fact that I am using persistence play into that at all? In other words, do the updates generally go to the persistence partition, the OS partition, or perhaps both? What is /dev/sdc1 used for, and is it normal for it to be so small?

Ultimately, I'd like to know if I should just move some space from /dec/sdc3 to /dev/sdc2, or just ignore the warning, or what. Also, if I should be updating the OS in some "special" way due to it being a live distro, I'd of course like to know that as well.

Thanks for any help; I've done a fair amount of Googling on this, but have not hit upon anything.

This happens when you make bootable USB using DD mode. Kali is shipped as hybrid image so you can use recommended ISO mode. Use rufus for this.

/dev/sdc1 is unformatted kali live filesystem so you can't merge /dev/sdc2 with /dev/sdc1 and nor with /dev/sdc3 because it is ext4.

Using Gparted You can slightly decrease the space of persistence partition to right to make new partition out from it. Format the new. partition as FAT32 and also format /dev/sdc2 to FAT 32. Then merge them. Now you have bigger space in /deb/sdc2. Copy the efi folder from /dev/sdc2 before formatting it.

I think it is better if you go for bootable USB in ISO mode. That will be easier than formatting and extending of partition.

I think this is a known problem and has nothing to do with using dd or gnome-disk-utility to create the bootable USB.

See: 0004205: Low Disk Space on "Kali Live"
https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=4205

I think you just need to wait for the fix.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broomdodger

I think this is a known problem and has nothing to do with using dd or gnome-disk-utility to create the bootable USB.

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If you make bootable USB using ISO mode, this issue doesn't occur. I make bootable USB using rufus ISO mode and i never face this problem. DD mode also converts partition table from GPT to MBR which is unnecessary.

rufus is Windows only so... I can not use it.
I do like the devs attitude, the faq page is great!

Just had this exact same problem. Used a 16Gb USB and latest Rufus. I think the mistake I may have made, was selecting "DD" instead of "ISO" when Rufus queried it.

Basically wasted a whole afternoon as I got the USB configured with persistence, all my apps and configuration how I like it, went and did the final reboot and got the low space warning.

Trying again now with a 32Gb key and Rufus in ISO mode.

Can anyone tell me, as I am a newbie to this. with Persistence mode enabled and a decent sized drive, can you do updates to Kali? I know you can install software packages without issue, but I am unsure about updates.


Thanks

Thanks all for the info; I would have never figured out the correct search terms to Google!

As an aside, I've got to say that Linux has really come a LONG way in terms of user friendliness since I last used it seriously (granted, that was many years ago). I busted out my live installation because my Windows system got hosed somehow (a whole other ordeal), and it's been such a pleasure to use that I haven't been that motivated to fix my "main" OS. ****, I can even VPN/RDP to my office Windows box with it. And the fact that I've been able to plug my USB into different machines and it just *works* blows my mind, and the persistence back to the USB drive is killer. Given how much I've been using it, I better encrypt the **** thing, though :)