Setup a Kali Linux VM in the cloud (AWS) in minutes!

Doing a CTF and in need of some extra power? Only got access to limited processing and can’t afford the resources to spin up another VM? Have a look at using some cloud compute to supplement your efforts.

This guide is designed for a total newcomer to AWS. If you already have a VPC and keypair, go here and get cracking! If you don’t, follow along below.

Setup

• Create an AWS account and verify payment details.
• Go to the Kali Linux AMI subscription page
• Subscribe, then continue to configuration
• Keep the default configuration values, at the time of writing this, they were the only options available. Proceed to ‘launch’.
• Select the appropriate dropdowns, shown in the screenshots below:
  • Action
  • Instance Size (Offensive Security recommend a t2.medium instance with 4GB RAM and 2 virtual cores, but increase it as required)
  • VPC, create one if required
  • Subnet, create one if required
  • Security group. Create this based on Offensive Security’s recommendations. SSH access is the only connection method, you need to modify this for more access than terminal only.
  • Keypair

Connecting

Next, connect to your instance. Amazon provide instructions for whichever method you desire. Go to your: EC2 dashboard > instances > (your kail EC2 instance) > right click > Instance State > Start

Login with whichever account is specified in the AMI usage instructions, at the time of publish this was ‘ec2-user’

Kick off a sudo apt update && apt dist-upgrade

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths	Weaknesses
Quick to establish	IO bottleneck
Cheaper than a new box	Reliance on internet access
Use only what’s required	Extra config required for GUI access (Burp)
Scalable

Further additions

From here, you can install xrdp on Kali and open up 3389 in your security settings for remote desktop access to the EC2 instance.

Enjoy!