Configuring Kali in VirtualBox

Updated: November 2026

Prerequisites

For this tutorial I am assuming you have already installed VirtualBox and, for a better experience, the VirtualBox Extension Pack. Both of which can be found at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.

You will also need 7-Zip. (Or another explorer that can open .7z files)

I will be using virtual box 7.2.22 on Windows 11 throughout this tutorial but the process should not be significantly different on other systems.

Downloading the Kali image

Now Kali has been known to be a bit awkward to setup in VMs, so the good people over at Offensive Security have put together some pre-made images available here. On that page select the Virtual Box image (Images for other Hypervisors such as VMWare and Hyper-V are available here too).

Extract the folder within the .7z file to the location you wish to store the VM in (In this example, I am storing it in my Documents folder).

Importing the VM

Next, open up Virtual Box, you should be presented a UI similar to the one shown below, click the “Open” button:

In the popup, navigate to the extracted VM, and select the .vbox file

You should end up with the Virtual Machine in the UI for Virtual Box.

VM Settings

Right-click on it and click “Settings”

Here we will adjust the various settings available to us. These depend on the spec of your machine, but I would recommend you aim for at least:

• RAM: 8192 MB (8GB)
• Number of CPUs: 4

Then click “OK”, by default, this VM will have a NAT network adapter, allowing it to share your host systems connection. If you are setting up an isolated lab, or wish to use a specific adapter in bridged mode you’ll need to change this to suit your needs.

Note: It is VERY unlikely you want to give NAT or bridged access to a vulnerable virtual machine, instead make sure you isolate them with a host only or internal adapter

Starting and Using Kali

Now click “Start” on the Virtual Machine and let the OS boot.

From here, the default credentials are simply

• Username: kali
• Password: kali

This version of Kali comes largely configured out the box, however, it is worth opening a terminal, and installing updates with

$ sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

If the VM is just for CTFs, I personally like to disable the screensaver, and auto-sleep functionality. From the settings menu, these options can be found in “Xfce Screensaver” and “Power Management”

Other common tweaks include:

• Shell transparency
• Installing extra tools
• Unzip rockyou.txt ($ gunzip -d /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt.gz)
• General customisation

It is highly recommended you change the default Kali account password