The USB Armory MKII from Inverse Path is an open source hardware design, implementing a flash drive sized computer. Kali Linux fits on a microSD card for it.

By default, the Kali Linux USB Armory MKII image does not contains the kali-linux-default metapackage which is often found in Kali platforms. If you wish to install extra tools please refer to our metapackages page.

If you’re unfamiliar with the details of downloading and validating a Kali Linux image, or for using that image to create a bootable device, it’s strongly recommended that you refer to the more detailed procedures described in the specific articles on those subjects.

To install a pre-built image of the standard build of Kali Linux on your USB Armory MKII, follow these instructions:

1. Get a fast microSD card with at least 16GB capacity. Class 10 cards are highly recommended.
2. Download and validate the Kali USB Armory MKII image from the downloads area. The process for validating an image is described in more detail on Downloading Kali Linux.
3. Use the dd utility to image this file to your microSD card. In our example, we use a microSD which is located at /dev/sdX. Change this as needed.

$ xzcat kali-linux-2024.3-usb-armory-mkii-armhf.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

This process can take a while, depending on your PC, your microSD card’s speed, and the size of the Kali Linux image.

Once the dd operation is complete, boot up a computer with the USB armory plugged in.

You should be able to log in to Kali.

If you want to customize the Kali USB Armory MKII image, including changes to the packages being installed, changing the desktop environment, increasing or decreasing the image file size or generally being adventurous, check out the Kali-ARM Build-Scripts repository on GitLab, and follow the README.md file’s instructions. The script to use is usb-armory-mkii.sh.