💡 For anyone still trying to figure out the correct SSH username:
Just adding to the conversation because this wasn’t smooth sailing for me either — but also, I’m a beginner.
When I first launched the AMI in us-east-1, I tried logging in with the username kali and it didn’t work. So I tried the other usual suspects: root, ec2-user, admin — nothing worked.
Eventually, after some trial and error (terminating the instance and starting fresh using the same key pair), I used root again and saw the message from the Kali devs saying that kali is the correct username. I tried it again — and this time it worked.
The first time I used root I didn’t get that message at all. The second time I did. No idea why kali didn’t work initially, or why I didn’t get the dev message the first time. Maybe the instance wasn’t fully initialized yet, maybe I made a typo, maybe it’s just AWS being AWS.
If you’re hitting the same wall, don’t assume you’re doing something wrong — it might just take a few tries. It may have absolutely nothing to do with whether you “read the instructions.” I read them too. Still had issues.
✅ Try terminating the instance and launching a fresh one. That’s what finally worked for me.
Just keep troubleshooting. You’ll get in. 💻🔥
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