Running Kali Linux from the live disk is best when you are doing forensics or recovery tasks. Some tools, such as OpenVAS will not work at all, because they have to be configured and file updates must be saved. You can't do this from the CD. One thing you can do very neatly from the live disk is to start up a computer without writing anything to the hard drive, and this is an important consideration when you are working on recovering files from the hard drive in question for forensic investigation.

To run Kali from the CD, just load the CD and boot from it. You will see the following screen. Note there are several options in booting live from the CD:

Most of what you need comes preloaded on Kali. There are a few applications we have found useful that are not loaded with the base install. We will also set up and configure OpenVAS to use as our vulnerability scanner.

root@kalibook :~#  apt-get -y install gedit

Terminator – the terminal emulator for multitasking

This is Bo's favorite terminal application. You can split the screen into several windows. This proves to be a great help when running several ssh sessions at the same time. It also has a broadcast function where you can run the same string in all windows at the same time.

To install:

root@kalibook :~#  apt-get -y install terminator

EtherApe – the graphical protocol analysis tool

This is a great visual passive/active network sniffing tool. It works really well for sniffing Wi-Fi networks. It shows you where the services are running, and can also show you where users are doing suspicious bit-torrent downloads and other behavior that is not approved on most corporate networks.

Recon is everything, so a good vulnerability scanner is necessary. Kali come with OpenVAS installed. It must be configured and updated before use. Fortunately, Kali comes with a helpful script to set this up. This can be found under Applications | openvas initial setup. Clicking on this will open a terminal window and run the script for you. This will set up the self-signed certificates for SSL and download the latest vulnerability files and related data. It will also generate a password for the admin account on the system.

Kali also comes with a check setup script which will check the services and configuration. If an issue does come up it will give you helpful information on the issue. This script can be found at Applications | Kali Linux | System Services | OpenVas | openvas check setup. Click here and a terminal window will open and run the script.

The script results are as shown in the following screenshot:

Note this check shows the running ports of the services. The check shows a warning that these services are only running on the local interface. This is fine for your work. It may at some point be useful for you to run the OpenVAS server on some other machine to improve the speed of your scans.

Next, we will log into the Greenbone web interface to check OpenVAS. Open the browser and go to https://localhost:9392. You will be shown the security warning for a self-signed certificate. Accept this and you will get the following login screen.

You will log in with the user name admin and the very long and complex password generated during the set up. Don't worry, we're going to change that once we get logged in. Once logged in you will see the following page.

Now go to the Administration | Users tab:

This will take you to the user administration page. Click the wrench link to the right of the name admin and this will open the edit page for the admin user.

This will take you to the edit page. Change the radio button for Use existing value to the blank field and add your new password and click the Save button.

We've now finished the setup of OpenVAS and we're ready to do some real work.

A clean and clear documentation helps you report your work. There are two documentation tools we use to keep documentation organized:

A document organizer is a little different from a mere text editor or word processor. Proper documentation requires an organized filing structure. Certainly, a Windows security analyst could create a folder structure that lets them organize the documents. It is in-built in these document-organizing applications, and using them reduces the chance of losing a folder, or accidentally recursing your folders, or losing important parts of the investigation's documentation.

KeepNote – the standalone document organizer

KeepNote is the simpler tool, and quite sufficient if you are working alone. To find KeepNote, open the Application menu and click on Kali Linux | Recording tools | Documentation | KeepNote. The following image shows a KeepNote setup similar to the way you would record a short test.

Dradis – the web-based document organizer

Dradis is a web application, and can be used to share documentation with a team. The default URL for Dradis is https://127.0.0.1:3004. The application can be hosted on a remote secure server, and that is the best feature about Dradis. The following screenshot comes from http://dradisframework.org.

There are several services that you will want to turn on when you need them. The general use of services in Windows and Linux is to have them start when the computer boots up. Most administrators spend little time managing services unless something goes wrong. In the Kali system, you will tend to shut down the workstation when you are not actually doing security analysis tasks, and you certainly do not want the security tools, like OpenVAS or Metasploit that you have on your workstation, to be accessible over the Internet. This means that you will want to start them when you need them, and shut them down when you are not using them.

You can find the commands to start and stop Kali Services from the Application menu: Kali Linux | System Services | Metasploit | Community / Pro [Start|Stop]

Another way to work with services is using the command line. As an example, consider HTTP (Apache2). There are several options for services:

The creators of Kali Linux have a toolbar for the Top 10 Security Tools. We will show you appropriate uses for all of these tools: and several others:

This chapter shows you two ways to set up Kali Linux so that you can use your company-issued Windows laptop, or any other laptop, to get a better performance out of Kali Linux and not to have requisition to a new machine just for Kali. Most enterprises do not allow you to dual-boot your computer, and running Kali on a VM throttles the resources for your Kali installation. Further, this chapter shows you the two reporting tools we use, and the situations where each of these tools makes the most sense. We showed you how to set up OpenVAS for the first time. We also showed you how to run services on Kali Linux. Finally, we introduced the top ten Kali security tools we use every day to perform penetration tests on Windows networks.