Now that we've updated our Kelly Linux install to use the latest packages and updates let's create a
non-root user on the system so we can do our day to day operations on it a bit more securely.
So in the video we will talk about some of the risks associated with running Kalli as root.
For example if you're running as root and issue a command to wipe the entire hard drive Kelly will happily
do that for you.
So we're going to create a non-root user and then demonstrate how to carry out our day to day operations
as this non-root user and escalate privileges only when necessary.
Now that we have our base Kalli Linux install completed let's do a few additional things to make the
user experience more comfortable and secure.
First you'll notice that by default Kelly has the log in and run under the root user.
This is a security concern because when you run commands scripts or applications under the user the
system obeys the commands without hesitation for example and don't type this along with me if I were
to issue this command or am space RF space forward slash and hit enter the entire contents of my Linux
install would be erased.
Now you would think you should warn me first before issuing such a destructive command.
But it doesn't because it assumes that if I'm running as root I know what I'm doing and I'm going to
be extremely careful.
So to add a bit more security and kind of a sanity check for myself I'm going to create a second user
on this system.
This new user will still have administrative rights to the machine but whenever I issue a command that
requires elevated privileges Kaleem will stop me for a moment and ensure that's what I really want to
do.
We're going to add the new user which I'll call Brian like so user ad space tech em space.
Brian space tech capital G.
Space pseudo space tech s space slash and burn slash bash the tact and means create a home directory
called Brime.
The tech capital G says.
Add me to the group called sudo and the tech s establishes a log in shell that will be Bash hit enter
and notice here I do not get any additional prompts.
But one thing I'm going to want to do is set a password on my new user Brian.
So I will just issue the SS W.D. command space.
Brian
password here twice
and there we go.
The user Brian is all set.
So let's log out as root and log in as Brian
now once I'm logged in as Brian.
I can continue my regular tasks such as opening programs and editing files but when it comes to certain
operations Kelly is going to warn me before continuing.
For example I'm going to issue a command we learned about in the last module called apt get update this
command pulls down the latest packages and their versions and it requires elevated privileges.
So you'll notice that Kelly is going to barf up all sorts of errors at me when I try to issue it now.
So I'm going to issue the command again and this time by putting the sudo command ahead of it.
Now sudo stands for super user do and basically means trust me Kallie you can run this command with
elevated privileges because I know what I'm doing.
And I will see that I get a warning.
Making sure that I know what I'm doing before continuing.
So I'm going to type in the password that I established and now we can see that this time the apt get
update command completes successfully in our next video we get to the fun stuff.
We're going to look at how to begin scanning our network and create an inventory of active systems on
it.