security

How to delete a user on Ubuntu

How to delete user on Ubuntu

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Managing user accounts on Ubuntu Linux may involve listing the users on a system, creating a new user, or disabling a user account. Other times, you may need to delete a user account entirely, which is what we’ll be covering in this guide.

It’s possible to delete a user account from an Ubuntu system via either command line or GUI. The command line method will work on any system, but the GUI method will vary slightly, depending on the desktop environment you’re using. In this guide, we’ll be showing the process for command line, GNOME, and KDE. This should cover most installations, since GNOME is the default GUI for Ubuntu and KDE the default for Kubuntu. Let’s get started.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to remove a user via command line on Ubuntu
  • How to remove a user on GNOME GUI (default Ubuntu desktop)
  • How to remove a user on KDE GUI (default Kubuntu desktop)
How to delete a user on Ubuntu

How to delete a user on Ubuntu

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Installing VMware Tools on Kali Linux

How to install VMware Tools on Kali Linux

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If you’re running Kali Linux inside a VMware virtual machine, installing the VMware Tools software will help you get the most out of the system. VMware Tools will give the machine more capabilities, such as a shared clipboard with the host system, drag and drop file transfer, and automatic window resizing.

This makes copying data to and from a host system much more convenient. It also changes the VM’s resolution automatically when its window is resized, so you don’t need to change it manually. VMware Tools will work with just about any Linux distribution, but instructions can differ because of dependencies and package managers. Normally, Kali will automatically detect what platform the operating system has been installed on, and will include VMware Tools (if applicable) by default. If yours isn’t working or you just need to know how to use the features, we’ve got you covered in this guide.

In this guide, we’ll be going over the step by step instructions to get VMware Tools installed on Kali Linux. With these instructions, it doesn’t matter what host system you’re using, as long as the virtual machine is running Kali. This guide assumes that you’ve already installed Kali in the VM correctly.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to install VMware Tools on Kali Linux

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Giving a user root permissions on Kali Linux

How to provide user with root privileges on Kali Linux

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Many of the hacking tools on Kali Linux require root privileges to execute, not to mention all the ordinary Linux commands that require it. If you’re sick of having to preface commands with sudo and typing in the root password often, we have a couple of solutions for you.

You can login to the root user in terminal with the sudo -i command, as we explain in our guide on Kali Linux default password. Alternatively, you can see our guide on enabling root login in Kali in order to login to the GUI with the root account.

The last option is to provide a normal user account with root privileges. In this guide, we’ll go through the step by step instructions to grant root privileges to a normal user account on Kali Linux.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to provide user with root privileges on Kali Linux

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Installing Java JDK via command line on Kali Linux

How to install Java on Kali Linux

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The objective of this guide is to show how to install the Java Development Kit (JDK) on Kali Linux. This is needed by Java developers and programmers in order to compile and run Java applications. It’s also required for security tools that are built in Java.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to install Java JDK in Kali Linux

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List of Kali Linux keyboard shortcuts

Kali Linux keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet

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Kali Linux users have a lot of typing ahead of them. The process of gathering reconnaisance information before launching an attack, and finally using penetration testing tools against a target system, usually involves a lot of keystrokes and maybe a few command line terminals.

To maximize your productivity in Kali and save yourself some time, you can learn some keyboard shortcuts. In this guide, we’ve compiled a bunch of useful keyboard shortcuts into a cheat sheet, so you can refer back to it any time you need. We’ll also show you how to create your own keyboard shortcuts.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • Kali Linux keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet
  • How to create custom keyboard shortcuts

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Penetration testing and hacking tools on Kali Linux

List of best Kali Linux tools for penetration testing and hacking

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Kali Linux is a Linux distribution geared towards cyber security professionals, penetration testers, and ethical hackers. It comes decked out with a large assortment of hacking tools, and many more can be installed.

Perhaps you’re thinking about installing Kali Linux, or have recently installed it but aren’t sure of where to start. In this guide, we’re going to go over some of our favorite penetration testing and hacking tools on the distro. This will give you a good impression of what’s available, as well as some idea of how to use the various tools.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • Best Kali Linux tools for penetration testing and hacking

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telnet command on Kali Linux

How to install and use telnet on Kali Linux

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The telnet utility, a once common protocol that graced the terminal of every system administrator and power user, was a precursor for SSH. These days, it’s a forgotten relic that isn’t installed by default on most Linux distros.

Despite the other protocols that have come to replace it, telnet remains an ideal utility to test the connection to a certain port of a device. In this guide, we’ll see how to install telnet on Kali Linux, along with some usage examples.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to install telnet
  • Command usage examples for telnet

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lsb_release command that shows what version of Kali is installed

How to check Kali Linux version

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The objective of this guide is to show how to check what version of Kali Linux a system is running. This includes information such as the version number and what CPU architecture the system uses (i.e. 32 or 64 bit).

Kali is a rolling release, meaning that there are no full system upgrades. Rather, users just need to update all the packages on their system in order to upgrade to the latest version of Kali. With this in mind, it’s not as much of a concern to know if your system has fallen out of date or not, as updating it can be done entirely with apt package manager. We’ll show you how below.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to check Kali Linux version

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traceroute on Kali Linux

How to use traceroute on Kali Linux

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When performing digital reconnaissance or penetrating testing, it’s important to fingerprint a network by understanding what servers or devices sit between your system and a target. For example, security professionals can’t go straight to attacking a web server without first taking the time to see if there’s a firewall in front of it.

This is where the traceroute utility comes in. It can send a packet from your system to the target machine, and list out its entire route for the journey there. This will reveal how many devices your network data is passing through, as well as the IP address of each device.

Kali Linux has another similar reconnaissance utility called mtr, which mostly functions the same as traceroute. In this guide, we’ll see how to use traceroute and mtr, along with their various command options, on Kali.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to use traceroute
  • How to use mtr

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Default user and password for Kali Linux

Kali Linux Default Password

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The objective of this guide is to show the default username and password for Kali Linux. The guide will be applicable for persistent installations, as well as the live CD image and Kali virtual machine downloads in VirtualBox or VMware.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • Default username and password for Kali
  • How to execute Linux commands with administrative root privileges
  • How to change to root shell
  • How to change user and root passwords
Default user and password for Kali Linux

Default user and password for Kali Linux

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Cracking a password protected zip file on Kali Linux

How to crack zip password on Kali Linux

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The objective of this guide is to show how to crack a password for a zip file on Kali Linux.

By default, Kali includes the tools to crack passwords for these compressed archives, namely the fcrackzip utility, John the Ripper and a word list. Follow along with us in the step by step instructions below as we show two different methods for cracking the password of a zip file.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • What tools are used to crack password protected zip files?
  • How to crack zip password with John the Ripper
  • How to crack zip password with fcrackzip
Cracking a password protected zip file on Kali Linux

Cracking a password protected zip file on Kali Linux

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