How to increase the Kali Linux root partition

If you need to increase the Kali Linux root partition size, this might become difficult if you have another extended partition (like SWAP) right after your root partition ends.
First things first.

WARNING: backup your important data first! This might end up losing your data if you don’t know what you’re doing.

If you are using VMware, edit the settings of the Kali virtual machine and expand the hard disk.
Power on the Kali virtual machine.

My problem:
/dev/sda1 30GB mounted on /
/dev/sda2 5GB extended partition mounted as SWAP

What I want to do is delete the SWAP partition, mark the space as unused and increase the / partition size and leave a couple of GB free to create another SWAP partition.

Using qparted will not work, because it will tell you that the (swap) partition is in use.
Commenting the swap partition in /etc/fstab will also not work. Also tried swapoff –all with the same result.

The fix:
root@kali:~# fdisk /dev/sda5 //the SWAP partition
use p to print the current partitions on that device.
use d to delete the partition
with w write the changes and reboot.

Use df -h to see if the SWAP is still there, or qparted if you want a GUI.

Resize the root partition by deleting it:

root@kali:~# fdisk /dev/sda

Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 300 GiB, 322122547200 bytes, 629145600 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xaaea4a6f

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 60262399 60260352 28.8G 83 Linux

Command (m for help): d //deletes the partition
Selected partition 1
Partition 1 has been deleted.

// recreate the partition starting from the first allocated cylinder (2048), this increases the size of the partition
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-629145599, default 2048): 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-629145599, default 629145599): +290G //extend the / partition to 290G

Created a new partition 1 of type ‘Linux’ and of size 290 GiB.

Command (m for help): a //mark the partition as bootable
Selected partition 1
The bootable flag on partition 1 is enabled now.

Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 300 GiB, 322122547200 bytes, 629145600 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xaaea4a6f

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 608176127 608174080 290G 83 Linux

Command (m for help): w    //write the changes
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Re-reading the partition table failed.: Device or resource busy

The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at the next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8).

root@kali:~# reboot

After the reboot, issue the following command:

root@kali:~# resize2fs /dev/sda1
resize2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Filesystem at /dev/sda1 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 2, new_desc_blocks = 19
The filesystem on /dev/sda1 is now 76021760 (4k) blocks long.

Check with df -h if the partition scheme is ok.

root@kali:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev
tmpfs 529M 7.9M 521M 2% /run
/dev/sda1 286G 9.5G 264G 4% /
tmpfs 1.3G 320K 1.3G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 1.3G 0 1.3G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 265M 8.0K 265M 1% /run/user/133
tmpfs 265M 16K 265M 1% /run/user/0
tmpfs 1.3G 4.0K 1.3G 1% /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/90-mandatory.d
root@kali:~# resize2fs /dev/sda1

To create another SWAP partition, just use qparted and create the partition with the desired size.

Cheeers!