Kali/Persistent USB

Start with your Kali USB drive. See Kali/Live USB for details.

Instructions

Following the instructions here: http://docs.kali.org/downloading/kali-linux-live-usb-persistence

Start by flashing a USB drive with the Kali image. This article assumes this as a starting point. There should be two partitions on the USB drive.

The procedure we follow below is to create a new partition for storing persistent data. The persistent partition will start right above the second partition (the Kali Live partition). The existing partitions with Kali will take up about 3 GB, so the persistent partition will be about (N - 3) GB in size (where N is the size of your jump drive in GB).

Once we create the partition, we'll format it as an ext3 file system, then create a persistence.conf file to make it usable by Kali as a persistent partition.

Find Your Disk

Start by listing disks.

Linux

On Linux,

$ fdisk -l

Look for the USB drive. Should be at /dev/sdb.

Mac

On Mac,

$ diskutil list

The USB drive should be at /dev/disk1 or /dev/disk2.

Create Persistent Partition

Now we will create a partition on the USB drive, which will store persistent data.

Before

Here is what the disks look like before, from Kali Linux, running fdisk (if you can't find the fdisk utility, make sure you are root!).

The output of fdisk -l shows a block of information about each disk device. Here, we have /dev/sda, which is the hard drive on the machine, with several NTFS/linux partitions, and /dev/sdb, the USB jump drive with Kali installed:

root@kali:~# fdisk -l



Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xd228527c

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048    718847    716800   350M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          718848 230348799 229629952 109.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       457674752 488394751  30720000  14.7G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda4       230350846 457674751 227323906 108.4G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       448380928 457674751   9293824   4.4G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       230350848 448380927 218030080   104G 83 Linux

Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition table entries are not in disk order.



                                                                                     
Disk /dev/sdb: 58.9 GiB, 63229132800 bytes, 123494400 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x8312dfc0

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         64 5636095 5636032  2.7G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2       5636096 5637503    1408  704K  1 FAT12

Create Partition

The next step is to create the partition. The size of Kali Linux is a little over 3 GB. The total size of the remaining persistent partition should be less than N - 3, where N is the size of the jump drive.

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         64 6324223 6324160    3G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2       6324224 6485375  161152 78.7M  1 FAT12

Now we create the partition:

root@kali:~# end=7gb
root@kali:~# read start _ < <(du -bcm /root/Downloads/kali-linux-2.0-amd64/kali-linux-2.0-amd64.iso | tail -1); echo $start; parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary $start $end
3167
Warning: You requested a partition from 3167MB to 7000MB (sectors
6185546..13671875).
The closest location we can manage is 3321MB to 7000MB (sectors
6485376..13671875).
Is this still acceptable to you?
Yes/No? y

Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best
performance.
Ignore/Cancel? Ignore

Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

After

Here is what the disks look like after. There is a new /dev/sdb3 partition:

root@kali:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 14F3CA11-2903-4ABB-B891-5C4584781D0D

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1         40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sda2     409640 194715871 194306232  92.7G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda3  194715872 195985407   1269536 619.9M Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda4  195985408 488134983 292149576 139.3G Apple HFS/HFS+

Disk /dev/sdb: 14.5 GiB, 15512174592 bytes, 30297216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0a9a1b1a

Device     Boot   Start      End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         64  6324223 6324160    3G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2       6324224  6485375  161152 78.7M  1 FAT12
/dev/sdb3       6485376 13671875 7186500  3.4G 83 Linux

Disk /dev/loop0: 2.8 GiB, 2969686016 bytes, 5800168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Make Filesystem

Now make a filesystem, and label it what you will (here, persistence):

mkfs.ext3 -L persistence /dev/sdb3
e2label /dev/sdb3 persistence

Mount Point

Last step is to create a mount point for the persistent partition. Then mount the partition, create a persistence config file in the partition, and unmount it.

root@kali:~# mkdir -p /mnt/usbdrive
root@kali:~# mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/usbdrive
root@kali:~# echo "/ union" > /mnt/usbdrive/persistence.conf
root@kali:~# unmount /dev/sdb3