Okay, so now that we understand why tails is non-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 Persistence Storage.
This will open the Persistence Wizard.
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 tails.
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 boot into tales.
The additional software will not remove any software you install on tells.
Now, you want to 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 GnuPG.
The electron Bitcoin wallet.
And basically turning 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.
I'm going to do the same with GnuPG 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 and 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.
Now I'm going to close this and I'm going to restart.
And now when you get to the welcome Wizard of Tails, 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 start
tails to start it normally without unlocking the 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 telling us that the storage is unlocked.
And now if I start Tales, 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 Tales.
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 let's call 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 two.
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 tails.
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 tails.
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 tour 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 login 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 start it.
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 connect it to our Wi-Fi network.
And perfect, as you can see it, automatically connected.
Like I said, without 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 tales with no persistence exactly as we seen in
previous lectures.
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 Start Tales and this will
start it for me in the normal mode without mounting the persistent volume.
So I won't even have access to the file 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 tails on a USB stick that we can use as an amnesic 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 these 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 persistence storage, all you have to do is go to applications
again, two tales Persistence, storage and click on Delete.
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 volume because it is deleted.