Kali linux what distribution

Kali Linux (formerly known as BackTrack Linux) is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. Kali Linux contains several hundred tools targeted towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering. Kali Linux is a multi platform solution, accessible and freely available to information security professionals and hobbyists.

Kali Linux was released on the 13th March 2013 as a complete, top-to-bottom rebuild of BackTrack Linux, adhering completely to Debian development standards.

Kali Linux Features

More than 600 penetration testing tools included: After reviewing every tool that was included in BackTrack, we eliminated a great number of tools that either simply did not work or which duplicated other tools that provided the same or similar functionality. Details on what’s included are on the Kali Tools site.
Free (as in beer) and always will be: Kali Linux, like BackTrack, is completely free of charge and always will be. You will never, ever have to pay for Kali Linux.
Open source Git tree: We are committed to the open source development model and our development tree is available for all to see. All of the source code which goes into Kali Linux is available for anyone who wants to tweak or rebuild packages to suit their specific needs.
FHS compliant: Kali adheres to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, allowing Linux users to easily locate binaries, support files, libraries, etc.
Wide-ranging wireless device support: A regular sticking point with Linux distributions has been support for wireless interfaces. We have built Kali Linux to support as many wireless devices as we possibly can, allowing it to run properly on a wide variety of hardware and making it compatible with numerous USB and other wireless devices.
Custom kernel, patched for injection: As penetration testers, the development team often needs to do wireless assessments, so our kernel has the latest injection patches included.
Developed in a secure environment: The Kali Linux team is made up of a small group of individuals who are the only ones trusted to commit packages and interact with the repositories, all of which is done using multiple secure protocols.
GPG signed packages and repositories: Every package in Kali Linux is signed by each individual developer who built and committed it, and the repositories subsequently sign the packages as well.
Multi-language support: Although penetration tools tend to be written in English, we have ensured that Kali includes true multilingual support, allowing more users to operate in their native language and locate the tools they need for the job.
Completely customizable: We thoroughly understand that not everyone will agree with our design decisions, so we have made it as easy as possible for our more adventurous users to customize Kali Linux to their liking, all the way down to the kernel.
ARMEL and ARMHF support: Since ARM-based single-board systems like the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black, among others, are becoming more and more prevalent and inexpensive, we knew that Kali’s ARM support would need to be as robust as we could manage, with fully working installations for both ARMEL and ARMHF systems. Kali Linux is available on a wide range of ARM devices and has ARM repositories integrated with the mainline distribution so tools for ARM are updated in conjunction with the rest of the distribution.
For more features of Kali Linux, please see the following page: Kali Linux Overview.

Kali Linux is specifically tailored to the needs of penetration testing professionals, and therefore all documentation on this site assumes prior knowledge of, and familiarity with, the Linux operating system in general. Please see Should I Use Kali Linux? for more details on what makes Kali unique.

Updated on: 2021-Sep-27
Author: g0tmi1k

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Kali Linux Features

What is Kali Linux, and what is a Penetration Testing Distribution?

What is a penetration testing distribution? As legend tells it, years ago there was a penetration test in an isolated environment where the assessment team was not able to bring in any computers or have network access in or out of the target environment. In order to do the work, the first penetration testing distribution was born. It was a bootable Live CD configured with various tools needed to do the work, and after the assessment was completed the Live CD was shared online and became very popular.

Kali Linux has a direct lineage from this original distribution, running on through BackTrack Linux, and now is Kali Linux.

What are the makings of a great penetration testing distribution? What a penetration testing distribution is judged on has changed over the years. Originally it was just how many tools did it hold. Then it was did it have package management, and how often were they updated? As we have matured, so has the features that we need to provide. The true indication of a great Penetration Testing distribution is the selection of useful and relevant features that it offers security professionals. What kind of features are we talking about? We’re happy you asked! We’ve made a short list of some of these Kali Linux features, and linked them to their respective sources.

Special Kali Linux Features of Note

Full customisation of Kali ISOs. With the use of metapackages optimized for specific need sets of a security professional and a highly accessible ISO customization process a optimized version of Kali for your specific needs is always easy to generate. Kali Linux is heavily integrated with live-build, allowing endless flexibility in customizing and tailoring every aspect of your Kali Linux ISO images. This can be shown with our basic example build recipes, to our Kali ISO of doom recipe, which shows the types and complexity of customizations possible — build a self installing, reverse VPN auto-connecting, network bridging Kali image — for the perfect hardware backdoor.

Live USB Boot. This allows you to place Kali onto a USB device, and boot without touching the host operating system (perfect also for any forensics work!). With optional persistence volume(s) you can have opt to pick what file system to use when Kali starts up allowing for files to be saved in between sessions, creating multiple profiles. Each persistence volume can be encrypted essential feature needed in our industry. If that is not enough, we also have LUKS nuke option, allowing you to quickly control the destruction of data.

Kali Undercover. Using Kali in an environment you don’t want to draw attention to yourself? Kali Undercover is perfect to not stand out in a crowd by blending to a familiar operating system that most people recognize to stop shoulder surfers.

Win-KeX. Using Kali on WSL? This provides a Kali Desktop Experience for Windows Subsystem for Linux, with seamless windows, clipboard sharing, audio support and more.

Kali NetHunter. Kali on your (Android) phone. This covers multiple items, such as a ROM overlay for multiple devices, NetHunter App, as well as NetHunter App Store. On top of this, you also boot into a “full desktop” using chroot & containers, as well as “Kali NetHunter Desktop Experience (KeX)”.

Kali Everywhere. A version of Kali is always close to you no matter where you need it. Let it be; ARM, Bare Metal, Cloud (AWS, Azure), Containers (Docker, LXD), Virtual Machines (VirtualBox, VMware), WSL, and so on — is all available.

Kali ARM. Supporting over a dozen different ARM devices and common hardware such as Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Beaglebone, and more. We offer pre-generated images, ready to be used as well as build-scripts to produce more. We’re very active in the ARM arena and constantly add new interesting hardware to our repertoire.

The industry standard. Kali Linux is the undisputed industry standard Open-source penetration testing platform.

For more features of Kali Linux, please see the following page: What is Kali Linux?.

Want to learn more about the Kali Linux Operating System?

Download Kali Linux. the most advanced penetration testing platform ever made. Available in 32-bit, 64-bit, and ARM flavors, as well as a number of specialized builds for many popular hardware platforms. Kali can always be updated to the newest version without the need for a new download.

Kali Documentation. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a novice — our Kali Linux documentation site will have something you need to know about Kali Linux.

Kali Community. Kali Linux, with its BackTrack lineage, has a vibrant and active community. With active Kali forums, IRC Channel, Kali Tools listings, an open bug tracker system and community provided tool suggestions — there are many ways for you to get involved in Kali Linux today. Joining the community is easy — don’t hesitate; jump right in!

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Kali linux what distribution

Kali Linux is specifically geared to meet the requirements of professional penetration testing and security auditing. To achieve this, several core changes have been implemented in Kali Linux which reflect these needs:

Network services disabled by default: Kali Linux contains systemd hooks that disable network services by default. These hooks allow us to install various services on Kali Linux, while ensuring that our distribution remains secure by default, no matter what packages are installed. Additional services such as Bluetooth are also blacklisted by default.

Custom Linux kernel: Kali Linux uses an upstream kernel, patched for wireless injection.

A minimal and trusted set of repositories: given the aims and goals of Kali Linux, maintaining the integrity of the system as a whole is absolutely key. With that goal in mind, the set of upstream software sources which Kali uses is kept to an absolute minimum. Many new Kali users are tempted to add additional repositories to their sources.list, but doing so runs a very serious risk of breaking your Kali Linux installation.

Is Kali Linux Right For You?

As the distribution’s developers, you might expect us to recommend that everyone should be using Kali Linux. The fact of the matter is, however, that Kali is a Linux distribution specifically geared towards professional penetration testers and security specialists, and given its unique nature, it is NOT a recommended distribution if you’re unfamiliar with Linux or are looking for a general-purpose Linux desktop distribution for development, web design, gaming, etc.

Even for experienced Linux users, Kali can pose some challenges. Although Kali is an open source project, it’s not a wide-open source project, for reasons of security. The development team is small and trusted, packages in the repositories are signed both by the individual committer and the team, and — importantly — the set of upstream repositories from which updates and new packages are drawn is very small. Adding repositories to your software sources which have not been tested by the Kali Linux development team is a good way to cause problems on your system.

While Kali Linux is architected to be highly customizable, do not expect to be able to add random unrelated packages and repositories that are “out of band” of the regular Kali software sources and have it Just Work. In particular, there is absolutely no support whatsoever for the apt-add-repository command, LaunchPad, or PPAs. Trying to install Steam on your Kali Linux desktop is an experiment that will not end well. Even getting a package as mainstream as NodeJS onto a Kali Linux installation can take a little extra effort and tinkering.

If you are unfamiliar with Linux generally, if you do not have at least a basic level of competence in administering a system, if you are looking for a Linux distribution to use as a learning tool to get to know your way around Linux, or if you want a distro that you can use as a general purpose desktop installation, Kali Linux is probably not what you are looking for.

In addition, misuse of security and penetration testing tools within a network, particularly without specific authorization, may cause irreparable damage and result in significant consequences, personal and/or legal. “Not understanding what you were doing” is not going to work as an excuse.

However, if you’re a professional penetration tester or are studying penetration testing with a goal of becoming a certified professional, there’s no better toolkit — at any price — than Kali Linux.

If you are looking for a Linux distribution to learn the basics of Linux and need a good starting point, Kali Linux is not the ideal distribution for you. You may want to begin with Ubuntu, Mint, or Debian instead. If you’re interested in getting hands-on with the internals of Linux, take a look the Linux From Scratch project.

Summary

So, after having read this you should have figured out if Kali Linux is the distribution you were looking for or at least got an idea about your choice.

If still you have not figured it out, here is a summary that will hopefully remove your remaining doubts:

Kali Linux is made with pentesters and pentesting in mind so, expecting it to fit with your necessity might not be as simple even though it’s completely possible.
If you are new to Linux or have less experience with command line you might find Kali Linux to be not so user-friendly, even though our developers try to make it as user-friendly as possible some things might be intimidating to you if you are new.
The developers always try to make Kali Linux as much hardware compatible as possible but, still some hardware/s might not work as expected or not work at all. So, its better to research hardware compatibility beforehand rather than breaking your computer later.
If you are installing Kali Linux for the first time, it is recommended to install first in Virtual Machine then, after getting familiar with it, you can install it in your own hardware.

Hopefully, now you know if you need to install Kali Linux or not. If you have decided to install Kali Linux then, we welcome you to our community.

If not, then see you later, and remember always “Try Harder”.

Updated on: 2021-Sep-27
Author: g0tmi1k

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