Good day all

I am currently working on a project where the goal is to have a second operating system (Kali Linux) encrypted and mountable/unmountable on a Ubuntu system. All work must be kept on the encrypted partition and nothing can be installed or held on the Ubuntu operating system.

There will be an Intel NUC sitting on a remote clients network which will be turned off, I will wake on LAN which will initiate the VPN server, I will then connect the VPN client on my machine then use SSH from my machine at home to access the Ubuntu operating system. From here I would like to mount the second operating system (Kali Linux) and begin using the tools within it.

So far I have tried installing Virtualbox on the mounted partition and then installing Kali on the virtualbox, as I'm sure you guys know, virtualbox didn't install on the partition, it installed on the main disk. This is an avenue I am still pursuing in the hope that I can change the install location and move everything onto the encrypted partition.

The gold standard I dream of is not using virtual box and having kali linux on the second partition so that when mounted, all tools are accessible and all data is kept on the second partition. Therefore Ubuntu would only be used for initial access. This is what I am looking for advice on please, can it be done?

No doubt you have also seen areas in my plan which I haven't so feel free to point them out. The key thing to know is that no one will be able to access the NUC to insert any decryption key etc, it must all be done remotely with maximum security in mind. The initial OS does not have to be Ubuntu but the second OS does have to be Kali.

Thanks for reading

It seems to me that you want a dual-boot setup, as documented at https://www.kali.org/docs/installati...ot-with-linux/.

EDIT: I am not sure if this permits encryption. If not, use manual installation. There is no problem finding third-party instructions if needed.

However I don't understand why you need to boot into Ubuntu rather than Kali, or why you don't just install the tools you need on the Ubuntu system.

encrypt your ubuntu's /home, then simply run vbox without any additional woodoo dance.

kali provide lxc images - I'd suggest you start there.

Do you mean something like what's available via VeraCrypt?