- Introduction
- Base Images
- Virtualization
- USB
- Kali On ARM
- Acer Tegra Chromebook 13"
- ASUS Chromebook Flip
- BeagleBone Black
- Cubieboard 2
- Cubietruck
- CuBox
- CuBox-i4Pro
- EfikaMX
- Galaxy Note 10.1
- Gem PDA
- HP Chromebook
- MiniX
- NanoPi2
- ODROID U2
- ODROID-C1
- ODROID-XU3
- Raspberry Pi
- Raspberry Pi - Disk Encryption
- Raspberry Pi 2
- RIoTboard
- Samsung ChromeBook
- Samsung Chromebook 2
- SS808/MK808
- Trimslice
- USB Armory
- Utilite Pro
- Containers
- WSL
- Cloud
- Kali NetHunter Documentation
- NetHunter KeX Manager
- Building a New Device File
- Building NetHunter
- Installing NetHunter from Windows
- Installing NetHunter On the Gemini PDA
- Modifying the Kernel
- NetHunter Application - Csploit
- NetHunter Application - DriveDriod
- NetHunter Application - Keyboard
- NetHunter Application - Router Keygen
- NetHunter Application - Shodan
- NetHunter Application - Terminal
- NetHunter Application Update
- NetHunter BadUSB Attack
- NetHunter Chroot Manager
- NetHunter Components
- NetHunter Custom Commands
- NetHunter DuckHunter Attacks
- NetHunter Exploit Database SearchSploit
- NetHunter HID Keyboard Attacks
- NetHunter Home Screen
- NetHunter Kali Services
- NetHunter MAC Changer
- NetHunter Man In The Middle Framework
- NetHunter MANA Evil Access Point
- NetHunter Metasploit Payload Generator
- NetHunter Nmap Scan
- NetHunter VNC Manager
- Porting NetHunter to New Devices
- Testing Checklist
- Wireless Cards and NetHunter
- Kali Linux on Android
- The Android Hacking Landscape
- General Use
- Tools
- Troubleshooting
- Kali Development
- Public Packaging
- Building Custom Kali ISOs
- Generate an Updated Kali ISO
- Live Build a Custom Kali ISO
- ARM Cross-Compilation
- Custom Beaglebone Black Image
- Custom Chromebook Image
- Custom CuBox Image
- Custom EfikaMX Image
- Custom MK/SS808 Image
- Custom ODROID X2 U2 Image
- Custom Raspberry Pi Image
- Preparing a Kali Linux ARM chroot
- Rebuilding a Source Package
- Recompiling the Kali Linux Kernel
- Community
- Policy
Kali Linux Root User Policy
Most Linux distributions, quite sensibly, encourage the use of a non-privileged account while running the system and use a utility like sudo when and if escalation of privileges in needed. This is sound security advice: this provides an extra layer of protection between the user and any potentially disruptive or destructive operating system commands or operations. This is especially true for multiple user systems, where user privilege separation is a requirement — misbehavior by one user can disrupt or destroy the work of many users.
Kali Linux, however, as a security and auditing platform, contains many which tools can only run with root privileges. Further, Kali Linux’s nature makes its use in a multi-user environment highly unlikely.
For these reasons, the default Kali user is “root”, and no non-privileged user is created as a part of the installation process. This is one reason that Kali Linux is not recommended for use by Linux beginners who might be more apt to make destructive mistakes while running with root privileges.