Tuesday, May 6, 2008

USB BackTrack Linux installation

BackTrack is a Live Linux distribution based on SLAX that is focused purely on penetration testing. Distributed by remote-exploit.org, BackTrack is the successor to Auditor. It comes prepackaged with security tools including network analyzers, password crackers, wireless tools and fuzzers. Although originally designed to Boot from a CD or DVD, BackTrack contains USB installation scripts that make portable installation to a USB device a snap. In the following tutorial, we cover the process of installing BackTrack to a USB flash drive from within a working Windows environment.

BackTrack running from USB Screenshot:

BackTrack in action running from USB

How to install BackTrack to a USB device:

Note: USB installation of BacktTack performs like the Live CD. Currently a persistence BackTrack feature is outside the scope of this tutorial.

  1. Download the (Portable Backtrack) USB BackTrack version
  2. Extract the Boot and BT3 folders to the root of your USB device
  3. Navigate to the Boot folder on your "USB device" and click bootinst.bat (click continue if the following error appears)
  4. BackTrack Error

  5. Follow the onscreen instructions to make the device bootable
  6. Once the USB install script has finished, reboot your computer and set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device

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