How to install Kali Linux in Virtualbox : Step-By-Step guide.

Oracle Virtualbox is an open source virtualization software that can be downloaded from here. It runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems . Now we are going to see how to install Kali Linux in Virtualbox. I am using the latest release of Virtualbox for this howto.  After downloading and installing virtualbox, open it. Click on New as shown below.

The “Create virtual machine” window opens. Type the name of the virtual machine.  select type as Linux and version as Linux 2.6 or Debian. Click on Next.

Then select the RAM for your virtual machine. I put it to 512MB. Make choice according to the memory available in your system. Make sure it is above or same as recommended memory. Click Next.

The size of the hard disk is automatically assigned. We can change it later. I suggest you to keep the size of virtual hard drive above 10 GB. Since we are creating a new virtual machine, select “Create a virtual hard drive” option. Click on Create.

The system will prompt us to select the type of file to create. If you want to just stick to Virtualbox, you can leave the default selection. If you want to use your file image for other virtualization software, select accordingly. My selection is vmdk. Click on Next.

Select “dynamically allocated” option and click on Next.

On the next window, we can choose the location we want to store our file and the size of our virtual hard drive. Choose the appropriate location and move the size selection slider to above 10 GB. Click on Create.

Our virtual machine is successfully created.

It’s time to install Kali Linux.  Before installing, go to settings > system. On the Processor tab, select Enable PAE/NX setting. I will tell you why we did this later.

Power on the machine. We are greeted by the below window.

Read the message and click on OK. Then system prompts us to select the startup disk to  install our OS from. Make appropriate choice and click on Start.

The boot menu appears. click on Install option.

Select the appropriate language to be used in installation process.

Select your location.

Select the keyboard to use.

Network configuration window appears. The system will prompt us to select the name server. Leave it blank if you don’t want to use any name server. Select Continue.

Enter the hostname for your system. Select Continue.

Enter the domain name if you want. Otherwise leave it blank. Select Continue.

Enter the root password. Make sure you read the instructions before selecting a password. Select continue.

Confirm the root password by re entering it. Select continue.

In the  partitioning disks window, select “Guided – use entire disk” option.

Confirm the partition disk selection.

Select the scheme of partitioning.

Then we are shown the summary of our configured partitions. Select “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk” option.

Then package manager configuration window opens. You are prompted if you want to select the network mirror. Select Yes if you want, otherwise select No.

Enter the proxy address if you want to use a HTTP proxy. Select Continue.

You are prompted whether you want to install the GRUB bootloader. Select Yes or no.

The installation complete window appears. Select Continue to boot into Kali Linux.

The system starts booting into kali linux.

If the below error occurs, then you have not enabled “pae/NX” as I have instructed above. Enable it and boot again.

You are taken to the authentication prompt of the system. Enter username root and password you specified above.

We have succcessfully installed Kali Linux. Now let us install Virtualbox guest additions on the system. We need to install some packages before installing guest additions. Open terminal and type command apt-get install -y linux-headers-$(uname -r).

Then Click on devices tab and select Install Virtualbox guest additions. When a pop up arises asking you if you would like to run it automatically, Click on Cancel.

Open terminal and navigate to the media holding guest additions as shown below. That would be cd/media/cdrom.

Copy the “VBoxLinuxAdditions.run” to the root directory using command cp VBoxLinuxAdditions.run /root/ as shown below. Change the permissions of the file using command chmod 755 /root/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run.

Navigate to the root directory and execute the file using command ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run.

Reboot the system and the guest additions will be  successfully installed along with screen integration as shown below. Hope this was helpful.