Kali Linux Live USB with persistence and wireless on Macbook Pro

kali_osx_persistence_wifi.md

Kali Linux Bootable USB with Persistence and Wireless on OSX

Download the appropriate Kali Linux .iso

• Download site: https://www.kali.org/downloads/

I used a 64 bit .iso image, downloaded via HTTP. I downloaded the amd64 weekly version, as the pool linux headers (needed below for installation of wireless drivers) were ahead of the stable release kernel.

Download the SHA256SUMS and SHA256SUMS.gpg files from the same location.

Check the hash

Check that the hashes were not tampered with. First, get the Kali GPG public key, and verify the fingerprint:

$ wget -q -O - https://www.kali.org/archive-key.asc | gpg --import
$ gpg --fingerprint 7D8D0BF6
pub   rsa4096 2012-03-05 [SC] [expires: 2018-02-02]
      44C6 513A 8E4F B3D3 0875  F758 ED44 4FF0 7D8D 0BF6
uid           [ unknown] Kali Linux Repository <[email protected]>
sub   rsa4096 2012-03-05 [E] [expires: 2018-02-02]
$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.gpg SHA256SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sun 12 Nov 03:47:29 2017 GMT
gpg:                using RSA key 44C6513A8E4FB3D30875F758ED444FF07D8D0BF6
gpg: Good signature from "Kali Linux Repository <[email protected]>" [unknown]

Compare the SHA256 hash with that reported in SHASUMS:

$ cat SHA256SUMS
16123b76a6d4fc3ed72aef508bee9542462f2d1d5376acd1fcc3369ad337a505  kali-linux-2017-W46-amd64.iso
$ shasum -a 256 kali-linux-2017-W46-amd64.iso
16123b76a6d4fc3ed72aef508bee9542462f2d1d5376acd1fcc3369ad337a505  kali-linux-2017-W46-amd64.iso

Create the USB disk

Identify your external USB with diskutil - the disk ID (disk2, disk3 etc is represented as <DISK> below):

$ diskutil list

If necessary, prep the external USB with diskutil to get a single partition:

$ diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 KALI /dev/<DISK>

Unmount the volume in DIsk Utility, or at the command-line:

$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/<DISK>

Then use dd to make a bootable image on the USB:

$ sudo dd if=<path to downloaded .iso> of=/dev/<DISK> bs=1m

Boot into Kali Linux

• Restart the Mac
• Hold down the Option key when you hear the chime
• Select EFI as the startup disk
• Select Kali Linux (persistence)

Create a new persistent partition

• Start gparted from the terminal
• Select the USB disk
• Select the Unallocated partition
• Create a new partition (by default this will fill the free space on the USB)
  • Partition -> New
  • Create as: Primary Partition
  • File system: ext3
  • Label: persistence
• Apply the operations
  • Edit -> Apply All Operations
  • Confirm this action
• Exit gparted

Combine the new partition with Kali Linux, persistently

Create a mount point for the persistence particion, and mount it

$ mkdir -p /mnt/my_usb
$ mount <DISK> /mnt/my_usb

Create a partition.conf file. This will enable the persistent storage on USB startup

$ echo "/ union" > /mnt/my_usb/persistence.conf
$ umount <DISK>

Check the persistent partition

• Restart the Mac
• Hold down the Option key when you hear the chime
• Select EFI as the startup disk
• Select Kali Linux (persistence)
• At the terminal:
  • df -h will bring up a list of mounted drives. There should be a mountpoint /lib/live/mount/persistence/<DISK> pointing to your new persistent partition
  • ls -ltrh /lib/live/mount/persistence/<DISK> should show four entries: lost+found, persistence.conf, rw, and work. The rw directory is a persistent link to /.

Update the OS

Update the installer and acquire the appropriate linux headers

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install linux-image-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,')
$ apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,')

Install kernel headers

These need to be obtained separately:

$ wget http://http.kali.org/kali/pool/main/l/linux/linux-kbuild-<VERSION>_amd64.deb
$ wget http://http.kali.org/kali/pool/main/l/linux/linux-headers-<VERSION>-common_<VERSION>_amd64.deb
$ wget http://http.kali.org/kali/pool/main/l/linux/linux-headers-<VERSION>-amd64_<VERSION>_amd64.deb
$ dpkg -i linux-kbuild-<VERSION>_amd64.deb
$ dpkg -i linux-headers-<VERSION>-common_<VERSION>_amd64.deb
$ dpkg -i linux-headers-<VERSION>-amd64_<VERSION>_amd64.deb

Install the Broadcom drivers

apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms

Enable and disable modules

$ modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac bcma
$ modprobe wl

Enable network-manager

nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Set the value of managed to true,