WSL guide for basic Crimson Defense purposes.

Objectives

Acquire a full Kali WSL vm on your Windows machine. Understand the basics of Linux and Layer 3 Virtualization.

Installation

The first step is to initialize your system for WSL. Hit Win + R, type Powershell, hit enter, type wsl --install -d kali-linuxinside of Powershell and hit enter again. It will download a basic OS and then as you a few questions on how to set up your new VM. Enter your username and password when prompted. These should be memorable, but don't necessarily need to be unique. You can use the same credentials you use to log in to windows if you would like. A few seconds later you will see the Powershell REPL replaced with ZSH (Kali's default.) That's it, you're ready to learn Linux!

Explanation

Win + R is the windows command system for launching apps. Powershell is the advanced terminal application on windows. It's what you will use to interface with your VM through the Command Line. Finally, once you type wsl --install and hit enter, you have just run a command from within Powershell. This command initializes your windows system to set up WSL and prepare for a new VM. The -d kali-linux is an argument we append to our command so that we actually install Kali on the first go and don't have to install it later. There are lots of other Linux Distributions you can try out in the same fashion such as Ubuntu or Fedora. You can quickly google or ask an llm for the single install command for a distro you want to try out. We use Kali because it comes with all the tools we need for cybersecurity work. It is the industry stander "hacker" OS, if you will, and is used widely by penetration testers across the world. If you are just using WSL to learn how to develop and compile your code as a CS student, then you will likely want to run Ubuntu instead.

Post-Installation

Now that your shiny new WSL has been installed, all you need to do is hit the windows key and launch whichever distro you installed as you would any other application. Once you're in the Kali shell, you don't have all of the tools yet. First you'll need to update your package manager to make your system aware of the latest versions of your software. sudo apt update will do. By default the Kali WSL instance does not come with the full Kali suite, for this you will need to run sudo apt install -y kali-linux-default kali-win-kex. This last command might take a minute, so you can just install tools on a case by case basis for now, and load everything once you have some downtime. This takes about 12GB of storage Download 17 mins. Install 5 mins