The course is part of this learning path
This course provides an overview of Kali Linux and some of its main components and features. We'll also take a look at Linux in general including how it looks, how to use it, how to use the command line, how to change the settings, and more. We recommend taking this course as part of the Web Penetration Testing & Bug Bounty Hunting learning path.
Intended Audience
This course is intended for anyone who wants to learn the basics of Kali Linux, with a view to becoming an ethical hacker and/or a bug bounty hunter.
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this course, it would be beneficial to already have some experience with Linux.
Hi, starting from this lecture, we're going to take a look at the Kali Linux, and in fact we're going to have a look at the Linux, generally. We're going to see how it looks, how to use it, how to use the command line, how to change the settings, so on and so forth. This will be introduction to Linux. So, make sure your Kali Linux is working and you managed to solve all the problems in the previous section. So, we're going to start the Kali Linux. It doesn't matter if you're using VirtualBox, it doesn't matter if you're using VMware or UTM, just start the Kali Linux. And in fact, it doesn't even matter what kind of version of Kali Linux you're using. Make sure you have a working copy. And as I said before, you may witness different kinds of backgrounds on the desktop for Kali Linux during the course, during you watched the lectures of this course. And it doesn't even matter whether you downloaded my own version OVA, for specifically created for this course, or even if you downloaded kali.org/iso or OVA. It doesn't matter. Again, the thing is we have to learn how to use Linux. We don't learn how to use specific kind of Kali Linux or specific version of Kali Linux. We need to learn about the logic. We need to learn about folding mechanisms of Kali Linux, and something like that. And that's what we intend to do during this section. So, I'm going to start Kali Linux. And I'm going to use the one that I have downloaded from the kali.org because it's a little bit trickier to use that kind of version, rather than the specific version that has been created for this course. So, let me log in with the Kali and Kali, and remember you need to log in with root and t-o-o-r, if you're using the specific version, but if not, just log in with the Kali and Kali. And then later on after this section, I believe you would be able to understand everything that we're doing inside of the Linux for the rest of the course. And again, if you come across in a situation where you can't make it work, just go back and download the one that has been created for this course. Anyway, as you can see right now, I'm seeing the Kali Linux. If you're not seeing it full screen like this, just make it full screen, but if it does not adjust, don't worry about it, I'm going to show you how to change the resolution of this Kali Linux. Anyway, long story short, we have our operating system. As you can see, this is the desktop. There are some icons over here, just like Windows or just like Mac. You can put anything you want over here, and you will see some kind of icons over there, they're just shortcuts, we can reach them through the main menu. Don't worry about the shortcuts over here. So, let me walk you over to everything that you see on the screen. If you click on the left hand side over this icon, you will see the tools. So, these are tools that come with Kali Linux. The ordering of the tools and stuff can change, but there should be some kind of settings icon. If you click on that settings icon, you can change the settings of the Kali Linux. You can change the appearance, you can change the desktop, you can change whatever you want. It's all up to you. For example, if I go into the appearance, it seems that I'm using Kali-dark right now. I can go to something else. I can change the fonts, I can change the icons, I can do whatever I want. I'm not even going to change that. I'm not even going to bother with that. But the thing that I want to show you over here is that you can change everything. You can change the desktop settings, you can change the file manager notification settings as well. And over here there is something called display which is important. If you're not seeing this full screen, you can come over here to display and change your resolution. Right now I'm using this with 1920x1080. You can just change it in a way that you want, and if you apply it, then your screen resolution will be adjusted. Just change it from here and you will have a bigger screen. Great. Now that's the only option. That's the only setting that I wanted to show you. Because if you're not using Kali Linux with proper screen, then you will have a hard time. So, if you adjusted that, then it's okay. You don't even have to change any settings. Now, maybe you may want to change the keyboard. As you can see there's a keyboard option here as well. For example, I'm using a Turkish keyboard right now and it will cause me some problems, but it's easier to do this with the comment line with the terminal. I'm going to show you what I mean later on during this lecture, but I just wanted to give you heads up. Anyway, so I don't want to change the keyboard right now. I'm just going to do it with the terminal, but if you want you can just go over there and add some languages. So, over here you have the Firefox as the browser. This is one thing you should check, because if you don't have an internet connection then it will be kind of problem for you. Right now you can browse to any website like google.com or kali.org, just to test if you have any connection. Now, I'm going to go into the google.com, and let's see if we see the thing, here we go. By the way, my keyboard is not very working right now. As you can see if I click on some of the characters, it displays another character over here. That's because we haven't adjusted it according to our local machine. I'm going to show you how to do that, but make sure you have an internet connection. If you don't go back to the VirtualBox and make sure you choose the NAT network from the network section. If you have the internet connection, you shouldn't change anything. If you selected the NAT Network and still don't have the internet connection, maybe you can go to preferences or settings and create another NAT Network, like we have done before from here, and make sure you choose the new NAT Network from the Kali Linux and try one more time. Sometimes antivirus solutions block this kind of connection as well. Maybe you can try to disable your antivirus solution and try with that. But you've got to have internet connection, not only to connect internet from Kali Linux, but also to download tools that we will be using throughout the course. So, over here which we have the terminal emulator, which is the most important thing, and you can reach it from this icon as well. So, you will see terminal emulator, and root terminal emulator, if you're using the latest version. So, I will talk about the differences between them, and if you are using the OVA that has been created for this course, all the emulators will be root emulators, the root terminals. So, if you click on the terminal it will be open as root and root or root and Kali. But over here we're seeing that Kali and Kali. And if you have installed with the ISO, let me make this a little bit smaller, you may see your own username and that is okay, we're going to talk about this. You can make the smaller, you can make this full size and everything. So, this is a terminal, and once we write a comment and hit 'Enter', the comment will be executed for us by the Kali Linux and we will be using this a lot throughout the course. And in fact we're not going to use GUI (graphical user interface) very much, we're going to do everything with the terminal. So, you better get used to it and I'll just make sure that I will walk you through every step of it. No worries. So, I'm here and if I write any comment that Kali Linux accept, it will be executed for me. So, what do I mean by writing comments, for example, changing the keyboard, seeing the IP addresses, creating files, deleting folders, stuff like that, anything that comes to your mind. But first of all I want to start by changing my keyboard. So, the comment to do that is this 'setxkbmap tr', don't do that right now. If your keyboard is working as you would expect then it's okay. Don't do that. Since I'm using a Turkish keyboard right now, I have to write that comment and make sure Kali adjusts itself to my keyboard. If you're using any kind of keyboard that does not work well right now, just write this comment and put your own country code, for example for UK, you may put UK. So, for Turkish characters I just put tr right now, every Turkish character works for me and I have to do that every time I open the Kali Linux. So, if your keyboard is already working, don't worry about it. But if not, just make sure you write this comment every time you open the Kali Linux. Now, I'm ready to write some comment and execute those commands. But that is not why we are here for in this lecture, we're just seeing the overview of the Kali Linux, we're going to spend so much time doing that following with the next lecture. So, I just close this down. Here, you see some icons, there is a wired connection over here which is the NAT network obviously, we are connected with the NAT network. It thinks like it's widely connected with wire to the virtual box. We have the other things like volume, we have the clock, and we have some kind of battery status and something like that. So, these are just for notifications and very general settings. You don't need to do anything over here. Of course, you can see the calendar, you can log out, shutdown Kali from here, like from these icons, lock the screen and log in one more time. You don't have to do that. In my opinion, all you going to do is just find virtual open the terminal. And also if you come over here you can see the favorites, you can see other stuff, other tools. If you double click on the home or any kind of file system, it will take you through the file manager, like you will see the documents, you will see the downloads, music, pictures. So, for example, apparently I have some files over here, I'm just going to delete them. As you can see, we can use Kali as if it's like a regular operating system like Windows and Mac, we can create files, we can store folders, something like that. And over here in the file system, we see the Linux folders, which we will be covering in the upcoming lectures, and these are general Linux folders, not specific to Kali Linux but also for the other distributions as well. So, we will learn what kind of things that we can store inside of those folders. So, that's it. That's the file system, like you can go into the music, you can go into the desktop, you can go into the downloads, and just store anything you want. On the computer, obviously you will see the CD that we have created at the VirtualBox hard disk for this kind of purpose but we cannot go into that and change anything, but from here obviously it wouldn't make sense. Now there are some workspaces over here, for example, if you open any window like this, if you go to another workspace, like assume that you have a lot of things going on, you go into the second workspace which is clean, and when you're done you can go back to the first workspace and you see the things, the windows that you left open before. So, these are just workspaces. And again, all you going to do is just figure out how to open the terminal and maybe the file system as well. So, long story short, we have to understand how to work with terminal. So, that's exactly what we're going to do following the next lecture.
Atil is an instructor at Bogazici University, where he graduated back in 2010. He is also co-founder of Academy Club, which provides training, and Pera Games, which operates in the mobile gaming industry.