OK so now that we understand why Thales is not persistent by default why you might want to use persistence
and the warnings and the things that you want to keep in mind while using persistence.
Let's go ahead and see how to enable it and how to use it.
So I have tails right here.
And to enable persistent storage we're going to go to applications tails and we're going to click on
configure persistent volume this will open the persistence wizard.
It will give you a warning.
Pretty much all the stuff that I mentioned in the previous lecture.
It will also tell us how much of the memory stick will be used to create the persistent storage.
So I have a 32 gigabyte U.S. B flash drive as you can see on 20 of this will be used to create the persistent
volume.
It's also asking me for a passphrase.
This is the passphrase that will be used to encrypt the storage.
Make sure you pick something that is difficult to guess and difficult to brute force but make sure it's
also easy for you to remember.
So I'm going to put my passphrase.
I'm going to verify it in the second box.
And once you're ready you can click on create to create the persistent storage and once done you will
get a menu like this one right here which will ask you to what exactly you want to save in this persistent
volume.
So by default you can see personal data is set to on and what this will do it will actually create a
directory that you'll be able to see here in places called persistent.
And anything you store in this directory will be persistent and will not be removed when you restart
or shut down tables.
So right now you can see I don't have it because persistence is not enabled.
Once I do once I restart keeping this on you'll see I'll have a new directory in here which I can use
to store my files.
Now you can take any of these as you wish for example if you want to store your bookmarks you want to
take this if you want to store the settings you set for your network connections you want to take this.
So for example if you connect to a Wi-Fi network it will remember the password because otherwise with
the installation that we have right now the Wi-Fi settings are not stored.
So you'll have to connect to the same network if you are connecting to the same network every time you
booth into tells the additional software will not remove any software you install on tables.
Now you wanna be careful about this because like I said if hackers install software on your installation
then that software will also be persistent.
So make sure you only turn this on if you know what you're doing.
You have other options for example for printers for Thunderbird which is a mail client and you P.G.
the electron Bitcoin wallet and basically turn it on.
Persistence for any of these programs will store anything you do within these programs and store all
the settings.
So I'm actually going to turn it on for electron because I might want to store some keys in this bitcoin
wallet and I wouldn't want them to be deleted.
Am I going to do the same with JNU PGE.
Because again I might have some passwords in here or keys that I don't want them to be deleted when
I restart or boot into tails again.
I'll do this for Thunderbird as well as for pigeon just in case I actually go ahead and modify the settings
of any of these programs or store something in these programs.
I don't want it to be deleted.
I want it to be stored every time I boot into tails.
So like I said go through these options see which programs you might want to use and turn them on accordingly
now don't worry about these programs that I didn't really speak about.
We will go through a lot of these programs as we go through the course and you'll learn exactly what
they can be used for.
So once you're done with selecting the files and the settings that you don't want them to be removed
or reset click on save.
And that's.
We're done now.
The persistent volume will not actually be active or usable until we restart tails.
So I'm going to close this and I'm going to restart and now when you get to the welcome wizard of tales
you'll see we have an extra option in here.
So right now we can put the passphrase here and unlock the persistent storage or just click on star
tails to start it normally without unlocking this storage.
So it'll work exactly like we've seen in previous lectures with no persistence at all.
So right now I actually want to unlock the persistent storage so I'm going to put the passphrase that
I created when I created the storage and I'm going to click on unlock as you can see it's still us that
the storage is unlocked.
And now if I start tails I should have access to this persistent storage and be able to store files
in my persistent directory and all the settings that I'm going to change within the programs that I
picked will still be stored even if I restart tells so if I go to places now you will see we have an
extra directory called persistent and anything we place in this directory will not be removed when we
restart tails.
So let's try this.
I'm going to right click and create a new folder.
And that's called this persistence test so we have this new folder here and I'm going to create a new
folder on the desktop and we'll call this test to so when I restart tells now test two should be removed
because it's stored outside of the persistent storage and persistent test in here should still be here
I'm just going to do this to help you understand how to use this persistent storage so you can put any
files that you don't want them to be removed in here and then anything you store outside of this directory
will be securely wiped every time you turn off tables.
I'm also going to go ahead and connect to a Wi-Fi network because remember when I configured persistence
I chose to store the network settings so any settings I make should be persistent and should not be
reset when I restart tales.
So I'm going to go to my Wi-Fi settings and I'm going to click on select network.
I'm going to select my network and connect put the password connect and as you can see the icon is restored.
It's telling me Tor is ready and if I look in here wired disconnected and Wi-Fi is connected to my network
too.
So now when I restart the test in here the test directory should be removed because it's outside of
the persistent storage.
The persistent test here should still be here because it's inside the persistent storage and I should
automatically connect to this network because I configured my network settings to be persistent.
So this will go to show you that all of the programs that I turned on the persistent option to will
store any settings or anything that I do in them so let's go ahead and restart Okay so we're back at
the log in screen again.
As usual I'm going to put my password in here to unlock the persistent volume unlock that's unlocked.
Perfect.
Now we're going to started and perfect as you can see first of all we don't see the test directory that
we created here.
This is good because we created it outside of our persistent volume.
Now let's go to places and go to our persistent volume and as you can see we do have the persistent
directory right here.
This is perfect.
This should still be here because we created this inside the persistent volume.
So if you stored any other files in here you'll always be able to see them when you start tales.
Let's go ahead and check if we automatically connected to our Wi-Fi network and perfect as you can see
it automatically connected.
Like I said with that persistent you would have had to connect to your target network every time you
start tales because the network settings won't be stored.
This is just an example of all the other applications which we enabled persistent for.
So right now I can use any of the other applications that I enabled persistence for.
And anything I do on these applications will be stored even after I restart tales.
So this is perfect right now I have the best of both worlds I can store files in a specific encrypted
volume.
I can also store some settings that I specifically chose and everything else will be securely wiped
every time I turn off the machine.
Not only that but I still have the option of using tables with no persistence.
Exactly.
As we've seen in previous lectures all I have to do is let me restart and all I have to do is basically
just start tales without unlocking the persistent volume.
So right here all I have to do is literally ignore this and just click on star tales and this all started
for me in the normal mode without mounting the persistent volume so I won't even have access to the
files stored in the persistent directory.
So now even if I go to places I don't even have a directory called persistent.
And just to confirm if I go to my network settings you'll see that it's detecting that I have a Wi-Fi
adapter but it's not automatically connecting to my network even though that we can detect the network
because the network settings are not accessible because we started tales without mounting the persistent
volume.
So right now we have an installation of tables on a USB stick that we can use as an amnesiac live operating
system where nothing gets stored.
Once you shut it down and if we wanted to we can unlock the persistent volume which will allow us to
store files in a specific location and it will also allow us to restore the settings for the programs
that we enabled persistence for.
And keep in mind all of the settings and all of these files are stored in an encrypted volume that is
encrypted with a passphrase that we pick ourselves.
Now if for any reason you wanted to delete the persistent storage all you have to do is go to applications
again two tails and click on delete persistent volume.
This will ask you if you really want to do this.
I'm going to say yes delete it for me please.
And that's it.
Now it's deleted.
So now if you restart you won't even get the option to unlock the persistence value because it is deleted.