This write-up assumes you can deploy a virtual machine on your system. For a refresher on getting your system ready, see the kvm section of my guide at:
https://github.com/mikenizo808/Building-the-Ultimate-Ubuntu-Desktop-on-a-Pre-Made-Gaming-PC
Visit the kali.org website and download the Baremetal version which will be an .iso that we can use later with the Ubuntu virtualization solution kvm.
Optionally, use the sha256sum command to show the checksum of the downloaded iso file.
sha256sum
mike@ubuntu03:~$ sha256sum ./Downloads/kali-linux-2021.4a-installer-amd64.iso
31a21157378380e2c33b1cee39c303141b3f3c658fde457a545eb948094fab14 ./Downloads/kali-linux-2021.4a-installer-amd64.iso
Your ISOs can be stored anywhere, but the official location is /var/lib/libvirt/images/. Use the ls command to list the directory contents.
ls -lh /var/lib/libvirt/images/
Use mv to move the iso file to the desired location.
#example
sudo mv ./Downloads/kali-linux-2021.4a-installer-amd64.iso /var/lib/libvirt/images/
sudo ls -lh /var/lib/libvirt/images/
mike@ubuntu03:~$ sudo ls -lh /var/lib/libvirt/images/
total 2.9G
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mike mike 2.9G Jan 3 18:53 kali-linux-2021.4a-installer-amd64.iso
mike@ubuntu03:~$
Locate the vmm icon in your applications. This is the Virtual Machine Manager that we installed earlier from the command line. It gives us a nice GUI to create virtual machines, take snapshots, etc. For now, we will just create the VM.
Click the + sign and choose generic for the operating system. There is an autodetect feature, but it currently does not detect kali as the os.
Then click through to add the desired amount of cpu and memory. On my desktop that has 16GB RAM and 16 Processors, I give my kali 4 vCPU and 8GB RAM. This is totally up to you though since you can go light or heavy.
For disk, be sure to give enough space. I go with 80 GB and also choose drive encryption. I allow the system to choose auto lvm or similar and it does a good job of breaking things out like /tmp, etc. so you do not need to think about it.
Finally, power on the system and go through the guided install. You will need to stay at the console for the entire install since you will get some prompts all the way to the end.
With your VM powered on, click onto the screen so the console takes focus, then you can login with your user and password created earlier during setup.
Tip: By default kali will make you type in the username and password, so be careful not to type your password into the username field!
Launch a terminal and perform the following.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
Note: If you get errors when updating, try using sudo apt full-upgrade -y
In this write-up, we got you up and running with kali Linux as a virtual machine on Ubuntu.
Next, you might want to install some tools.
https://github.com/mikenizo808/Setting-up-Kali-for-Analyzing-or-Debugging-Binaries