Creating a Kali Linux Persistent Drive: A Super Easy Tutorial

Okay, I have been going through a lot of tutorials on how to create a Kali Linux persistent drive, and honestly, I have had a hard time finding one that was really easy to follow - one that a total beginner can follow.

So, I decided to investigate and see if I could find an easier way of creating a persistent Kali Linux drive. If you have no idea what I am talking about, let me give you a short intro.

Kali Linux is the chosen OS for Penetration Testing. It has a lot of tools installed just for that specific reason. What is best is that you can totally run Kali Linux on a USB without having to touch (or harm) your host OS.

Persistence becomes important if you want to save anything on your drive while working with Kali. That means Kali Linux would be acting like a mini-computer in your pocket.

Kinda cool, huh?

Well, let’s get right into the steps.

Get the Ingredients

For this tutorial, you will need three ingredients:

• the Kali Linux ISO file (which you can get from kali.org),
• Rufus (which you can get from rufus.ie), and last but not least,
• you need a USB drive with a minimum capacity of 8 Gigabytes.

Make your USB Bootable

• Open up Rufus on your computer. Note that it does not need any installation to work.
• Under the “Device” drop-down menu, select your USB. Please make sure to choose the right one.
• Then under the “Boot Selection” menu, click on the “Select“ button and go to wherever you saved the Kali Linux ISO image.
• Once you have that done, you will see a slider pop-up (it’s called “Persistence partition size“). This slider lets you choose the amount of space you want. Kali Linux already takes up 4GB, so your persistence size can be above that, depending on the total size of your drive. For example, if you used a 16GB drive, then the maximum persistence size you can have would be 16-4, which is 12. Slide it to however you want.

Once you have that ready, you can hit “Start“. Naming the Volume Label is optional.

Wait

Grab a cup of coffee as you wait because it might be a while until Rufus is done. Once it is done cross your finger and try it out.

Boot up

Get a computer and go into your boot selection menu. Depending on your brand, it might be different. To go to your boot menu, click F12 continually while your computer is starting up. Please make sure to have your USB plugged in before that.

Like I said, your button might be different, so look that part up. When you do get to the boot selection menu, select USB and move on. You should get to the Kali Boot menu. Pick the one with the word “Persistence” in it (not the one with Encrypted) and go ahead and hit Enter.

Done

Well, that’s it. From now on, whenever you boot into Kali, select the option that goes something like “Live USB Persistence,” and everything that you save will be saved on your USB, ready to be accessed everywhere.

Please let me know what you think. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you have.