Kali Linux ARM images.

When the developers of Kali Linux approached porting the OS to the Raspberry Pi 2 they came up with a unique strategy of offering a base system and then creating an apt-get process to download bundled and preconfigured tool sets. Most researchers won’t fully use the Raspberry Pi as sole Kali product but researchers will use the Raspberry Pi version of Kali as an extension of their own shell, such as a remote wireless auditor. So once we download the base OS you will immediately notice how streamline and easy it is to add the Kali tools and removing them as bundles using the same method.

What are Metapackages!

As mentioned in our quick video, Metapackages are repository packages of tools packed together, with the same kind or likeness, for easy installation. These Metapackages can be used not just for the Raspberry Pi but most ARM or Slim versions of Kali Linux, also another trick you can do is add the Kali Linux distro repository links to say another Debian based Linux and add the same packages, like adding wireless hacks to Ubuntu, it can be done but that requires a bit of Linux skill and more time to explain. Anyway…  on to our Raspberry Pi example.

New installations of Kali OS Images on ARM chipsets will only have the basic top 10 Kali tools installed. You should research and configure your new installation to add the Metapackages of attack tools you will be using. Not all tools will be available but most of them are there. Tools that are not available are only missing due to the compatibility of the tool and the ARM chipset architecture. The installation is SUPER easy by using the apt-get method. For instance the command to install all wireless hacking tools is just:

apt-get install kali-linux-wireless

Links to Metapackages 

Please check out all the Kali Metapackages:

Kali Metapackages – Link includes basic name and installation size in GB.

Kali Metapackages detailed description – Basic name and detailed package content.

So you have to calculate the base image size with the add on Metapackages. In my case the uncompressed Kali image was just over 3GB and the wireless hacking tools Metapackage was 6.6GB thus totaling just under 10GB. So you will want a nice big MicroSD card to store your various Metapackages on Kali.

Special Kali Metapackages

apt-get install kali-linux-full – 9 GB

apt-get install kali-linux-all – 15GB

There are full and All versions of Metapackages, if you want to strip and slim down your Kali system and then reinstall you can. This is helpful in some instances where you want to refresh a Kali desktop environment (Yes, these same Metapackages can be installed on Kali desktop :-))

Now it’s incredibly important that I let you know if you decide to go with a full install it may take over several hours. I did manage to install the full and it took over 3 hrs, It took 40 min alone to download the packages and the a few hours to unpack and install them and after the install the OS was kind of funky.

 



 

Uninstall Kali Metapackages.

You can also uninstall packages in this method. Say you just want the wireless auditing Metapackage but you have decided not to use the SDR-RTL Metapackage. Well all you have to do is uninstall that Metapackage group something like this:

apt-get remove kali-linux-sdr or apt-get purge kali-linux-sdr 

Coming up next!

Please tune in to our YouTube channel series on installing the Kali Linux OS on the Raspberry Pi. We understand that there are many tutorials out there in the hacking community but we feel we can bring a simple common sense approach to installing. Subscribe to our channel and like our vids!