Introduction to Kali Linux
The Kali environment, tool categories, rules of engagement and safe lab work.
Level 101 · 18 lessons · 15 practice labs
Lessons
The Kali environment and a working routine
- What Kali is and the working rules: You will learn what Kali Linux is used for and the working rules: never touch systems without permission and work only in your own lab.
- Kali lab setup: virtual machine, version check and snapshot: You will set up Kali in an isolated virtual machine, verify its version and take a snapshot to roll back to if something breaks.
- Discovering the toolbox in Kali: You will recognise the categories of tools in Kali and learn to find out what a tool does from its help pages.
- Installing tools and metapackages on Kali: You will learn to install tools on Kali, what metapackages (bundles of related tools) are, and why installing from a trusted source matters.
- Workspace layout and evidence notes on Kali: You will keep tool output and notes in an orderly folder per engagement so they can later be turned into a report.
- Short task: set up your evidence folder and snapshot the lab machine
Working comfortably in the terminal
- Terminal essentials in Kali: paths, pipes, editing: In Kali, on your own lab machine, you move between directories in the terminal, chain commands with pipes and edit files.
- Users and permissions in Kali: You will read users, file permissions and sudo use in Kali and understand why not everything should be done as the administrator.
- Processes, jobs and logs on Kali: In Kali you will see running processes and background jobs and read system logs to follow what is happening on the machine.
- Filtering findings out of tool output with grep and awk: You will pull open ports, versions and warnings out of long scan output with grep and awk into a short findings list.
- Short task: filter the open ports out of a tool’s output and add them to your notes
The network and first tools
- Network information on Kali: addresses, routes, DNS, listeners: In Kali you will read your own machine's addresses, routes, DNS setting and listening services and summarise its network state.
- Your first Nmap scan on Kali: In Kali, on your own lab machine only, you use Nmap to see which ports are open and read the output as a defender would.
- HTTP with curl on Kali: In Kali you use curl to fetch responses and headers from your own lab web server and check what information the server gives away.
- Capturing with tcpdump and pcap files on Kali: In Kali, on your own lab network, you save traffic to a capture file (pcap) with tcpdump and read which connections passed through.
- An introduction to password hashes on Kali: a John lab: In Kali you will understand why passwords are stored as hashes instead of plain text, and how a weak password can be spotted with John in a lab.
- A first look at msfconsole: searching modules and reading their info: You will open the Metasploit console, search for a module and read from its documentation what it does and which versions it affects.
- Capstone: protect your own Kali lab machine with a firewall: In Kali, on your own lab machine, you write simple firewall rules that close unneeded ports and check the result against a scan.
Practice labs
- Verify your Kali machine's version and update status: Check the lab Kali machine's release, kernel and pending updates and write them into a setup record.
- Install a missing tool from the right package and record its version: Find which package or metapackage provides two tools from the task list, install them and add their versions to the inventory.
- Prepare the evidence folder and snapshot for an assessment: Set up a dated evidence folder structure for the Göktaşı Yazılım assessment, add a notes template and snapshot the lab machine.
- Make your notes folder readable only by you: Find files in the evidence folder that others can read, fix their permissions and confirm with ls output.
- Find and stop a forgotten background process on the lab machine: List running processes and listening ports, identify the tool left over from an earlier session, stop it and confirm in the logs.
- Summarise the last session from the Kali machine's logs: Build a timeline from system and shell logs showing which tools ran and when during the last assessment session.
- Filter only the open ports from a scan output: Use grep and awk to pull the open ports from the lab scan file into one list with address and service.
- Produce a per-service host list from multi-host output: Process the Ilgıntepe Tekstil lab scan output into a table showing which hosts expose each service.
- Find ports that opened between two scans: Write a short command chain comparing yesterday's and today's lab scan outputs and add newly opened ports to your notes.
- Document your Kali machine's network configuration: Record the lab machine's addresses, default route, DNS server and listening services in a table.
- Audit this web service's response headers with curl: Inspect the lab web service's headers and record version-leaking and missing security headers as findings.
- Record one service's traffic and keep it as evidence: Capture only lab DNS traffic with a tcpdump filter and store the pcap with its hash in the evidence folder.
- List services exposed on your Kali machine and close the unneeded ones: List listening ports, stop the service not needed for the assessment and check again.
- Put a default-deny firewall on the Kali machine: Write rules that deny inbound traffic by default, allow SSH only from the lab network and verify by testing from outside.
- Test your Kali machine's firewall from outside and write the rule report: Scan your Kali machine from another lab host, prove only the allowed port is visible and report the rules with their reasons.
About this course
The Kali environment, tool categories, rules of engagement and safe lab work.
What you will learn
- The Kali environment and a working routine
- Working comfortably in the terminal
- The network and first tools
Prerequisites
No prior knowledge is needed; the course starts from zero.
Lab environment
Lessons run in your own Kali Linux terminal in the browser, connected to a private lab network. Nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this course right for my level?
- The course is at beginner level; every term is explained where it first appears.
- Is there anything to install?
- No. Every lesson runs in your own lab environment that opens in the browser.
- How do lessons work?
- Each lesson has 8 to 10 steps and a short quiz. Early steps show the command to type, later steps give less help; if two attempts fail, the solution opens.
- Can I try it for free?
- Yes. The first three lessons of every course are free.