Jack Wallen takes you through the process of installing and using the new Ink Linux Snapshot tool.
Ink is an absolute must for Linux penetration testers and other types of admins to keep their systems and networks as secure as possible. With many Pentasting tools pre-installed, this Linux distribution can easily be your one-stop shop for auditing system security.
Since you will be using many different (and powerful) tools, you may want to consider adding a new snapshot tool, Unkputbar, to the mix. With this new system installed, you can always bring Kali Linux back to a functional snapshot, if something goes wrong.
Now, before we show you how to install this new tool, you must have Ink Linux installed with the btrfs file system. This is done through a manual partition, where you can select the file system to use (Figure A)
Figure A
Once you have installed Linux Linux with btrfs, you can add the Snapshot tool.
Let’s get it up and running.
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What you will need
All you need to do this is a running example of Kali Linux and a user with pseudo privileges.
How to install the necessary software
All we have to do is install the necessary tools to do this Log in to Linux, open a terminal window, and issue the command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt install btrfs-progs snapper snapper-gui grub-btrfs -y
Next, create the Snapper configuration file for the root system using the following two commands:
sudo cp /usr/share/snapper/config-templates/default /etc/snapper/configs/root
sudo sed -i 's/^SNAPPER_CONFIGS=\"\"/SNAPPER_CONFIGS=\"root\"/' /etc/default/snapper
Next we’ll prevent “updatedb” from indexing our snapshots (as this can dramatically slow down the system):
sudo sed -i '/# PRUNENAMES=/ a PRUNENAMES = ".snapshots"' /etc/updatedb.conf
Next, we must configure our login management to allow it to boot into read-only snapshot with:
sudo sed -i 's/^#user-authority-in-system-dir=false/user-authority-in-system-dir=true/' /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
Finally, reboot for the changes to take effect. When the boot screen appears, you will see the ink / GNU Linux snapshot listed in the menu (Figure B)
Figure B
How to create a snapshot
To create a new snapshot, issue the command:
sudo snapper-gui
The Snapper Snapshot GUI will open, ready to create a snapshot for you (Figure C)
Figure C
Click New and then, when requested (Figure D), Give the snapshot a name and click OK.
Figure D
After you have created your snapshot, you can reboot Kali Linux and when the boot screen appears, select Kali / GNU Linux Snapshot. In the resulting window (Figure e), You can select the newly created snapshot and boot.
Figure e
And the new ink is just for installing and using the Linux Snapshot tool. If this is your preferred pen-testing platform, I recommend adding this because it will prevent crashes from hitting your OS, which will require you to reinstall.
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