Start with your Kali USB drive. See Kali/Live USB for details.

Instructions

Following the instructions here: http://docs.kali.org/downloading/kali-linux-live-usb-persistence

Start by flashing a USB drive with the Kali image. This article assumes this as a starting point. There should be two partitions on the USB drive.

The procedure we follow below is to create a new partition for storing persistent data. The persistent partition will start right above the second partition (the Kali Live partition). The existing partitions with Kali will take up about 3 GB, so the persistent partition will be about (N - 3) GB in size (where N is the size of your jump drive in GB).

Once we create the partition, we'll format it as an ext3 file system, then create a persistence.conf file to make it usable by Kali as a persistent partition.

Find Your Disk

Start by listing disks. On Linux,

$ fdisk -l

Look for the USB drive. Should be at /dev/sdb.

On Mac,

$ diskutil list

The USB drive should be at /dev/disk1 or /dev/disk2.

Create Persistent Partition

Now we will create a partition on the USB drive, which will store persistent data.

Before

Here is what the disks look like before:

root@kali:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 14F3CA11-2903-4ABB-B891-5C4584781D0D

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1         40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sda2     409640 194715871 194306232  92.7G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda3  194715872 195985407   1269536 619.9M Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda4  195985408 488134983 292149576 139.3G Apple HFS/HFS+

Disk /dev/sdb: 14.5 GiB, 15512174592 bytes, 30297216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0a9a1b1a

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         64 6324223 6324160    3G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2       6324224 6485375  161152 78.7M  1 FAT12

Disk /dev/loop0: 2.8 GiB, 2969686016 bytes, 5800168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Create Partition

The next step is to create the partition. The size of Kali Linux is a little over 3 GB. The total size of the remaining persistent partition should be less than N - 3, where N is the size of the jump drive.

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         64 6324223 6324160    3G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2       6324224 6485375  161152 78.7M  1 FAT12

Now we create the partition:

root@kali:~# end=7gb
root@kali:~# read start _ < <(du -bcm /root/Downloads/kali-linux-2.0-amd64/kali-linux-2.0-amd64.iso | tail -1); echo $start; parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary $start $end
3167
Warning: You requested a partition from 3167MB to 7000MB (sectors
6185546..13671875).
The closest location we can manage is 3321MB to 7000MB (sectors
6485376..13671875).
Is this still acceptable to you?
Yes/No? y

Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best
performance.
Ignore/Cancel? Ignore

Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

After

Here is what the disks look like after. There is a new /dev/sdb3 partition:

root@kali:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 14F3CA11-2903-4ABB-B891-5C4584781D0D

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1         40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sda2     409640 194715871 194306232  92.7G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda3  194715872 195985407   1269536 619.9M Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda4  195985408 488134983 292149576 139.3G Apple HFS/HFS+

Disk /dev/sdb: 14.5 GiB, 15512174592 bytes, 30297216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0a9a1b1a

Device     Boot   Start      End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         64  6324223 6324160    3G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2       6324224  6485375  161152 78.7M  1 FAT12
/dev/sdb3       6485376 13671875 7186500  3.4G 83 Linux

Disk /dev/loop0: 2.8 GiB, 2969686016 bytes, 5800168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Make Filesystem

Now make a filesystem, and label it what you will (here, persistence):

mkfs.ext3 -L persistence /dev/sdb3
e2label /dev/sdb3 persistence

Mount Point

Last step is to create a mount point for the persistent partition. Then mount the partition, create a persistence config file in the partition, and unmount it.

root@kali:~# mkdir -p /mnt/usbdrive
root@kali:~# mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/usbdrive
root@kali:~# echo "/ union" > /mnt/usbdrive/persistence.conf
root@kali:~# unmount /dev/sdb3

Flags

Kali/Persistent USB

From charlesreid1

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