Getting your system ready for a CTF might be one of the most important things to do, especially if the CTF is limited in time. You don't want to spend all your time installing tools. But what tools do you need to start out with? What programs you need just add to kali?
To really get the most out of the setup you need to use it regularly / break it / take snapshots and do CTF's.
So to starts out, download Kali and Virtualbox and setup a VM. The base install still might not have all the tools you need. Do you believe you still in to install tor on kali? I would think it would have been there I use it all the time...
Also most important if you are using a VM in a CTF. Use a USB wifi or ethernet adapter and disable the virtual nic.
Here are some things that I do after installing a new Kali setup.
First setup your own user account and add it to sudoers if you didnt do it in the setup.
It's always good to start off with an update and upgrade.
update and install all the megapacks
sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
reboot
Here we install everything plus some extras that I like. The megapack is about 18G of programs.
Other megapacks are listed here Kali Linux Metapackages | Kali Linux Documentation.
sudo apt install kali-linux-everything -y
sudo apt install alsa-utils \
unace rar unrar p7zip-rar \
file-roller htop nethogs tor tor-arm tor-geoipdb \
transmission transmission-cli transmission-gtk \
remmina gdebi vim-nox vim-scripts privoxy multitail \
steghide par2 terminator pppconfig pppoeconf \
terminator multitail python3-virtualenv \
libgpgme-dev swig libgeoip-dev -y
network-manager fix
If you want to Turn on and off your network device.
sudo sed -i 's/managed=false/managed=true/' /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
sudo service network-manager restart
python env
Having a python environment is always good and Jupyter.
I attached my pip-freeze-list.zip to this post.
virtualenv pyenv
source pyenv/bin/activate
pip install pip-freeze-list
Here is a handy way to start jupyter
cat <<EOF> run_jupython.sh
#!/bin/bash
screen -dmS Servers -t Main
screen -S Server -p 0 -X stuff "source ~/pyenv/bin/activate; cd ~/Documents; jupyter lab \n"
EOF
chmod 755 run_jupython.sh
VSCode text editor
Here we install code text editor.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install code
Some Extensions to install:
code --install-extension aaron-bond.better-comments
code --install-extension aeppert.bro
code --install-extension alefragnani.Bookmarks
code --install-extension bmewburn.vscode-intelephense-client
code --install-extension DavidAnson.vscode-markdownlint
code --install-extension eamodio.gitlens
code --install-extension ecmel.vscode-html-css
code --install-extension esbenp.prettier-vscode
code --install-extension golang.go
code --install-extension infosec-intern.snort
code --install-extension infosec-intern.yara
code --install-extension KevinRose.vsc-python-indent
code --install-extension leandro-rodrigues.crt-vscode
code --install-extension mikestead.dotenv
code --install-extension ms-azuretools.vscode-docker
code --install-extension ms-python.python
code --install-extension ms-python.vscode-pylance
code --install-extension ms-toolsai.jupyter
code --install-extension ms-toolsai.jupyter-keymap
code --install-extension ms-toolsai.jupyter-renderers
code --install-extension ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers
code --install-extension ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh
code --install-extension ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare
code --install-extension ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare-audio
code --install-extension ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare-pack
code --install-extension quicktype.quicktype
code --install-extension redhat.ansible
code --install-extension redhat.vscode-yaml
code --install-extension ritwickdey.LiveServer
code --install-extension shd101wyy.markdown-preview-enhanced
code --install-extension tomoki1207.pdf
code --install-extension vscode-icons-team.vscode-icons
code --install-extension vscodevim.vim
code --install-extension wk-j.vscode-httpie
code --install-extension yzane.markdown-pdf
maybe search for other snippet library.