How to install Kali Linux in Virtual Box

Backtrack Linux, a penetration testing suite from Offensive Security has been an awesome operating system for security testing since its first release 7 years back.

Kali Linux is Debian based Linux distribution developed by Mati Aharoni, Devon Kearns and Offensive Security and its latest version 1.0.3 was released on 26 April 2013. 

Now, I am going to you tell how to install Kali in a Virtual Box.

Things you need:

1. Virtual Box (download it HERE)
2. Kali Linux image (download it HERE)

Now let’s get into the installation.

• Open Virtual Box.

• Click on New and then we will name the OS. In this case, I will name it Kali Linux. After selecting that we are intending to install Debian on the machine we will click next.
• Check these :

1. Name:  Kali Linux
2. Type: Linux
3. Version: Debian

• After naming section, we need to select the amount of memory (RAM) that we will allocate to it. I used 1024MB and then we click on next.

• We need to create the virtual hard drive for the OS. I usually select the default option to “create a virtual hard drive now”. We then click Create.

• Hard drive file type shows many options we will select VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and we click on next.

• To save space, I go with Dynamically allocated and click on next.
• The VirtualMachine is now listed in our homescreen, so let’s double-click it to boot it up or click on Start.

• Now we need to select the installation media we want to use.

• We will browse out to the ISO file we downloaded earlier. Then, we will click Start.

• We land on the boot menu of Kali Linux, select Install and press Enter.

• Now just follow the following screens, you need to choose

1. Language,
2. Location,
3. Keyboard configuration

Name the host (I just used kali). If you have domain, you can use it. And Kali’s default root password is toor, you can use it or you can change it.

• After conforming the password, we need to partition our virtual hard drive to install the OS.
• Since we created a separate VDI, we can select to use the entire disk.

Hooray! We installed Kali Linux but there is one more step to do before we can boot into the system.

We need to enable PAE/NX for the Kali Linux. Otherwise, you may get a fatal error when attempting to boot into Kali Linux.

• Get back to the home screen of Virtual Box, highlight the Kali Linux in the homescreen, and click Settings.
• From here, navigate to the System submenu and go to the Processor tab.
• You will see the option to Enable PAE/NX. Check this box to enable it.

That’s it. Now you can boot into your Kali Linux.

Just login as root using the password set earlier and you’re good to go!