How to mount USB drive on Kali Linux

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mount usb drive kali linux

Objective

The procedure on how to mount USB drive on Kali Linux is no different from any other Linux distribution. Kali Linux was used by this guide to provide you with simple to follow steps on how to mount USB drive on Linux.

Operating System and Software Versions

  • Operating System: – Kali Linux

Requirements

Privileged access to your Kali Linux system will be required.

Difficulty

EASY

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Video

Instructions

USB Block Device Name

Given you have already inserted your USB drive into your computer, we first need to determine a block device name of your USB partitions. The easiest way to approach this is by executing fdisk -l command to list all drives and their associated partitions.

# fdisk -l
...
...
Disk /dev/sdc: 1.9 GiB, 2064646144 bytes, 4032512 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0c56e3d1

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1        2048 4032511 4030464  1.9G  b W95 FAT32

Scan through the output of the above fdisk -l command and find partition block name. In the example above it is /dev/sdc1.

Create Mount Point

Next, create a mount point to serve as a destination target directory for USB partition mount. This directory will after we mount the above USB partition contain all files stored your USB drive. Choose any name for your USB mount point directory, e.g., usb-drive.

# mkdir /media/usb-drive

Mount USB drive

At this stage, we are ready to mount our USB drive partition. Execute, the below mount command while replacing the block device path ( /dev/sdc1 ) with the one you took a note about previously. 

# mount /dev/sdc1 /media/usb-drive/

Access Your USB drive

Optionally check to see whether your USB drive has been mounted correctly using the following linux command:

# mount | grep sdc1                                                 
/dev/sdc1 on /media/usb-drive type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)

Access your files on your USB drive by navigating to the previously created mount point directory/media/usb-drive:

# cd /media/usb-drive
# ls

Unmount USB

Do not remove your USB drive before you do not perform a proper umount otherwise your risk losing your data:

# umount /media/usb-drive

Permanent Mount



In case you need to mount your USB drive permanently after reboot first you need to determine the UUID belonging to USB partition you wish to mount:

# ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/*

Create a new /etc/fstab entry:

# echo "/dev/disk/by-uuid/1D83-5BFF /media/usb-drive vfat 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

Your USB drive will now mount automatically after reboot. Please, note that the UUID uniqueness is not guaranteed. It is recommended to use partition tags instead, but that is a tale for another time.

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