How to install Kali Linux on a virtual server (VPS/VDS)

Kali Linux is an operating system based on the Debian distribution, primarily designed for identifying vulnerabilities in network infrastructure. It is used by system administrators, network engineers, pentesters, and those who wish to delve deeper into network operations, methods of detecting weak points, and ways to protect infrastructure from various types of attacks.

Kali Linux supports most platforms, file systems, and several installation options. We will consider installing Kali Linux on a virtual server (VPS/VDS) from an ISO image file.

1. Download the system image from the official website https://www.kali.org/get-kali/



2. The downloaded image needs to be connected to the virtual machine.
To do this, go to the Personal Account - Services menu - Virtual Servers (https://cp.zomro.com/services/vds) and in the service menu [...] click Go to panel

Before connecting the image, stop the server.
To do this, in the opened VMmanager panel, go to the Virtual Machines menu - select the server - click the "Stop" button


The list of disks available for connection to the server is in the "Disks" menu


Next, in the "ISO images" menu, upload the previously downloaded Kali Linux image to the server:




and connect it to our virtual machine:


After the image is connected, the server can be turned on

and connect via VNC

This completes the server preparation.

Let's proceed with the installation of Kali Linux
Already at the installation stage, you can choose different operating system modes, but we will use the typical installation, which is suitable for most tasks in Kali Linux.

3. Select the graphical interface and the desired system language:



4. Configure the network. We will do this manually, as network configuration via DHCP protocol is not used on VPS.



The necessary data for network configuration can be found in the VMmanager panel by selecting the server and clicking the "IP addresses" button


We need: IP address, Gateway address, Network mask, Domain (Computer name)


which we will sequentially enter when the installer program requests them:




As DNS servers, we will choose Google's servers: 8.8.8.8, although others can be used, for example, CloudFlare: 1.1.1.1


And the last in network configuration - hostname or Computer name (in the VMmanager panel, the Domain name):


5. Account setup - it's simple here: enter your or desired name, then login and password:




6. The disk partitioning stage allows for quite flexible disk configuration in the system, we will use this configuration option:






7. Choosing software packages.
With Kali Linux, you can get about 600 different programs and utilities that will allow you to comprehensively study and test the network and computers for vulnerabilities. We will leave the default installer choice, which will install the xfce graphical shell (not demanding on server resources) and the proposed set of programs.



8. Complete the Kali Linux installation setup by specifying the GRUB bootloader configuration.




9. After the installation is complete, you need to disconnect the installation image file from the server. To do this, turn off the server, disconnect the image, and turn the server back on.





10. As a result, we have installed the Kali Linux operating system on the virtual server, which can be launched via VNC.



11. To connect to the server via SSH, install and start the SSH service. To do this, launch the console on the server with root privileges


and sequentially execute the commands:

apt install ssh

systemctl start ssh

systemctl enable ssh

Now you can connect to the server via SSH with the previously added user (in our example: superadmin).
To connect from OS Windows, you can use programs like putty.