- In search for the Best Laptops for Kali Linux
- Requirements for the best Kali Linux laptop
- How much power do you need?
- Penetration testing
- Cracking hashes
- Processor
- memory
- Graphics card
- Storage
- Storage size
- Storage type
- Connectivity
- Bluetooth
- Ethernet port
- USB ports
- Battery Life
- Lightweight
- Best laptops for Kali Linux
- Linux Laptops
- Chromebooks
- Best Laptops for Kali Linux and Pentesting
- What laptop would work best for kali Linux
- What type of laptop should you use to run kali Linux
- The Best Laptop for Kali Linux
- ASUS ZenBook 13 Ultra-Slim
- Apple MacBook Pro
- Lenovo Legion 5 Laptop 15.6
- Razer Blade Stealth 13
- HP ProBook 450 G8 Business
- LG gram Laptop
- MSI GL62M 7RD-1407 15.6
- ASUS VivoBook Pro Thin
- Computer for hacker
- Desktop or laptop?
- Pentester Graphics Card
- Comments
In search for the Best Laptops for Kali Linux
Kali Linux is quickly getting traction as de facto penetration testing suite/OS for professionals and hobbyists alike. But obviously, it is not as popular as mainstream Linux distros like Ubuntu, Mint or Debian. That leaves most of pentesters in the dark when searching for the best laptop for Kali Linux. Up until now, Kali forums are filled with year-old suggestions of buying a Lenovo laptop that’s almost as old as you are. And I won’t lie – in some cases, you might aswell get that refurbished Lenovo. But maybe now is the time to get a something new?
Well, I took on the mission of finding the best Kali Linux laptops and it wasn’t pretty. Apparently, checking laptops one-by-one for their WiFi chipsets is not most fun way to spend my free time.
Now, I will skip the whole “do you really need Kali Linux” part and I’ll assume you have all the reasons in the world to install it and to buy a laptop for it.
Ok, let’s go straight to finding the holy grail of penetration testing – the best laptop for Kali Linux.
Requirements for the best Kali Linux laptop
How much power do you need?
To find the best laptop for penetration testing we need to define what exactly it will be used for.
For the most part, any laptop that runs Linux will work. You don’t need anything fancy when it comes to pentesting laptops. In the most basic sense, if Ubuntu can run on a laptop, Kali can run on it too.
Penetration testing
You could use a Kali Live USB with persistence or dual-boot with Windows (or other Linux distro). Most likely, you’ll also need to have a couple of virtual machines (via Oracle Virtual Box, VMware or Parallels). That only requires a basic processor and a bit extra RAM. You don’t need much for capturing, probing and listening. In that case, you might want to steer away from bulky machines and towards lighter ones if your budget allows it.
Cracking hashes
Using GPU cracking is an entirely another subject. In that case, you’ll need a laptop resembling a gaming rig. Then powerful CPU and GPU will come a long way but even then there some serious issues with GPU cracking on a laptop.
Processor
We can apply basic CPU guidelines when searching for a processor.
I would steer away from laptop pre-3rd generation Intel Core processors and from Celeron/Pentium lines. These processors are only OK if you want a Chromebook-class machine. In that case, you could even use ARM CPUs that should suffice for basic MITM attacks. Though, it might take a while to load and to juggle virtual machines. Also, trying to crack long series of hashes is almost out of the question.
Apart from that, i3 and i5 processors are viable but an i7 U-series (as i7-6500U) processor would be ideal even if you want a laptop with a long battery runtime. And those that want a powerful rig should look for i7 HQ and HK series. i7-6700HQ and i7-6820HK CPUs are the most popular in 2016 laptops but their 4th and 5th generation counterparts are equally viable.
memory
The absolute minimum should be 4 GB. And even then, I would call it a viable amount of RAM if you will be using it in-field and without virtual machines. Yes, it is possible to have a pair of VMs on 4GB but extra 4GB cost so little that there aren’t reasons why to stay on the 4GB.
8 GB is a solid starting point for laptops under $900. But 16 GB is a bit better, especially if you can go for a 15.6″ laptop above $900 price tag.
Graphics card
GPU is primarily used for cracking hashes using “hardware acceleration”. It’s achieved with Nvidia’s CUDA cores (there is an analogous AMD platform but laptop market is almost entirely dominated by Nvidia).
At first sight, it might seem like a good idea – mobile GPUs have been slowly catching up and closing the gap to their desktop GPU models. Also, if you don’t need to do key cracking away from a power socket – there are little downside to getting a Nvidia card with dedicated memory.
But there are reasons why separate machines with a desktop CPUs/GPUs are preferred for processing keys. First of all, they are still faster than anything you could find in a laptop. Moreover, desktop parts bring better performance for a dollar and they can be upgraded at any time.
But second and a lot more important reason is heat. Cracking with GPU can heat up your laptop rapidly and laptops are very prone to overheating. Intensive CPU and GPU tasks are an easy way to catch your laptop on fire. I’m using a 17″ laptop with an i7 CPU and a dedicated GPU and I have to clean it
every 5 months prevent hardware throttling which severely limits performance. And guess what, there’s not much fun to unscrew dozens of screws to remove the accumulated strips of dust twice every year.
Also, don’t forget that Virtual Machines on laptops get assigned to Intel’s integrated GPU which means you can’t do GPU cracking on them as you could on a dedicated machine. Of course, you could use your host (native or Live OS) as attacker and avoid that problem altogether but that comes with its own obvious limitations.
Storage
Storage size
Storage requirements can be calculated without much trouble. Assume, minimum 250GB for main host and 50GB for every virtual host. It goes without saying, that you might want and need more than 250GB on your primary host – either for additional software, a library of ISOs and VM images or even software/games/media not related to pentesting at all.
| # of VMs | 250GB host | 500GB host |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 250GB | 500GB |
| 2 | 500GB | 750GB |
| 4 | 500GB | 750GB |
| 8 | 750GB | 1000GB |
| … | … | … |
If you’re a beginner and/or you don’t know how many VMs you’ll need – sticking with 2 is a good starting point.
Of course, if your particular workflow demands more or less storage – adjust these numbers as you see fit. This is just a crude estimate.
Storage type
As always, SSD is recommended but if you’re on a budget – go for a regular HDD. Only your boot times will suffer – though, slower boot times every time you start a virtual machine is not ideal.
Offensive Security for one of its workshops recommended to “Bring a powerful laptop with […] a fast hard drive. Bootstrapping and building ISOs will take a very long time on a machine which isn’t up to spec and you will likely be left behind”. At the same time, you’re not going DEF CON or Kali Linux workshops. But even then, SSDs have a lot of advantages over HDDs: durability, no need to defragment, better resistance to damage and (somewhat) to temperature.
You probably know all the reasons to get an SSD – but it still depends on your budget and whether that can match your storage requirements. You could get a laptop with multiple hard drive bays or M.2 slots but then you’ll need to make compromises on weight and battery life.
Connectivity
You’ll probably need a Wi-Fi chip with monitoring and injection mode and either “ac” (some are not fully supported) or “b/g/n”. Sadly, this is not always an option and even if there is a decent WiFi card – you could get better results with an external solution.
You can buy a pretty decent adapter (that just plugs into one of the USB ports on any side) for around $20-$40. I’ll cover additional hardware and peripherals later on in this guide
Also, it’s quite obvious that we should prefer WiFi cards with higher maximum bandwidth. But if you’ll be using an external WiFi adapter – you can just ignore this feature. Even if you’ll be using internal WiFi for hosting an “unsuspecting client” – it will not need that much bandwidth.
Bluetooth
I don’t know much about using Bluetooth for pentesting but I see no reason why you should get a laptop with it, especially when most laptops come with Bluetooth 4.0.
Ethernet port
Ethernet port is one of the few ports that you should care about. Bandwidth-dependant penetration testing will benefit greatly from a 1 Gbps network port. Sadly, a lot of laptops, especially those under 15 inches are sacrificing this fat port for a thinner frame. These laptops usually have some sort of USB-to-Ethernet adapter but apart from USB 3.1, these might not take full advantage of possible speeds over a fiber connection. And even then, LAN chips that need an adapter rarely go up to 1 Gbps.
USB ports
Having multiple USB ports is a plus. 4 USB ports would be ideal but 3 should suffice in most cases. And contrary to recent trends, having only a single USB 3.1 Type C port is a no-no when it comes to pentesting.
Battery Life
Whether you need a long battery life depends entirely on your type of pentesting. As a default, unlesss you’re going for a 17″ gaming-class rig with a top-of-the-line GPU, I’d say you should pay attention to battery performance.
Battery life is crucial for in-field laptop use and wardriving.
Removable battery is a big fat plus. Then we could get additional batteries directly from China.
Lightweight
If you prefer to take a 17″ machine to work every day – then you can skip this section entirely.
Machines with used to work with hashes (using GPU) will need very good ventilation. And good air circulation goes hand in hand with additional air paths and bulky frames in general. That’s why, unless you’re OK with having a desktop-replacement type of machine, you should not use your laptop for GPU cracking. It’s OK for short key lists but for large datasets you’d save a lot of time by feeding these hashes into a desktop PC.
Meanwhile, other, more lightweight types of pentesting, do not demand a lot of well-performing hardware. In that case, you could get away with buying an ultrabook or even a (fanless!) netbook.
In short, if you’ll need to crack keys – you should get a machine that has enough vents and can handle the heat it produces. In other cases – you’re in the clear.
Best laptops for Kali Linux
Linux Laptops
There are quite a few laptops on shops dedicated for Linux. Another option is to go for a laptop pre-installed with Ubuntu. System76 is best known sellers of these laptops (which generally are just rebranded Clevos). These might be good if you want a problem-free installation and you don’t need long battery life.
Chromebooks
For basic pentesting, even Chromebooks like Toshiba Chromebook 2 on Kali can work out just fine. If you’re feeling expermental and you need a basic pentesting laptop – you can go for an ARM Chromebook as there are guides for booting Kali Linux on ARM machines.
Going for Google Pixel is also an option but you might need to work out a few issues first. And anyways, at that price point, I would suggest looking at other laptops – Google Pixel excels at display quality which might not be a good enough reason for pentesters to pay a hefty premium.
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Best Laptops for Kali Linux and Pentesting
Last Updated on August 1, 2021 by Walid Salame 1 Comment
Being a hacker in the 21st century is now fashionable, as these guys have a lot of opportunities. The best laptop for Kali Linux depends on what you really want to do with that laptop? if you are looking to buy kali Linux laptop you just arrived to the right place.
Being in the niche of penetration testing and hacking is not a simple task, and largely depends on your skills. Do you want to connect to a WiFi point or attack an internal network, perform pentesting let’s just say you are an ethical hacker, Another benefit of pentesting laptop it will be used s a portable hacking station, and just using a laptop as a remote access connection will also not be amiss.
Again, it all depends on what you want to do. And anyway, let’s figure out where to start and what requirements of the laptop will be associated with hacking.
| IMAGE | NAME | FEATURES | PRICE | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ASUS ZenBook 13 Ultra-Slim |
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 | Apple MacBook Pro |
| Check Price | |||||||||||||||||
 | Lenovo Legion 5 Laptop 15.6 |
| Check Price | |||||||||||||||||
 | Razer Blade Stealth 13 |
| Check Price | |||||||||||||||||
 | HP ProBook 450 G8 Business |
| Check Price | |||||||||||||||||
 | LG gram Laptop |
| Check Price | |||||||||||||||||
 | MSI GL62M 7RD-1407 15.6 |
| Check Price | |||||||||||||||||
 | ASUS VivoBook Pro Thin |
What laptop would work best for kali LinuxBefore we look into the best laptop for running kali Linux let’s check what’s the Minimum & Recommended System Requirements. Installation requirements for Kali Linux differ depending on what you would like to install. As a lower bound, you can install Secure Shell (SSH) as a server without a desktop using only 128 MB of RAM (512 MB of RAM recommended) and 2 GB of disk space. If you need to install Kali Linux with extensive functionality, for example, with the default GNOME desktop environment and the kali-linux-full meta package , then you will need at least 2048 MB of RAM and 20 GB of disk space. In addition to RAM and hard disk requirements, your computer must have a processor that is supported by at least one of the amd64, i386, armel, armhf, or arm64 architectures.
What type of laptop should you use to run kali Linux
The Best Laptop for Kali LinuxIf you ask this question, then novice hackers should take a closer look at the following laptop models from our rating. The choice is yours!
Price:$799.66 ASUS ZenBook 13 Ultra-Slim
ASUS ZenBook 13 Ultra-Slim UX333FA best cheap laptop for Kali Linux This laptop from ASUS falls into the ranking of the best laptop for Kali Linux for a reason, because its main advantage is a long working time. Buyers rated it not only for such a dignity, but also for the screen size, it is only 13.3 inches, which allows you to put it in any bag. Problems with a lack of RAM you definitely will not appear, because the laptop has 16 GB, which is enough for a hacker. Zenbook 13 is One of the contenders for the lead among low-cost laptops This model has a great look, slim, compact body.
Price:$1,239.93 Apple MacBook Pro
Macbook Pro for pentesting it’s one of the best laptops you can ever find, with great Battery that last Up to 10 hours The talk that Apple will abandon Intel processors in favor of solutions of its own design has been going on for a long time. Earlier this year, the Cupertino-based company distributed test systems with the mobile A14 chip on board to select partners to prepare macOS software developers to migrate to the new architecture, and now it has finally made a life-changing move. Apple’s M1 System-on-Chip, which powers the next-generation Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro, should change everything – dramatically increase performance, extend battery life, and bring a ton of features that add up to a user’s big picture. experience under the control of the new version of macOS, because now Apple controls the hardware and software of its products inside and out. Moreover, according to the manufacturer’s promises, the M1 not only corrects the shortcomings of the previous “MacBook”, which weighs on the gluttonous and hot Intel silicon, but is simply the most productive chip among notebook CPUs. is Apple MacBook good for kali Linux ? it’s not good it’s perfect.
Price:$1,149.00 Lenovo Legion 5 Laptop 15.6
Lenovo Legion 5 Gaming Laptop What is the capable of Lenovo Legion 5 ? We do not take gaming laptops for reviews very often. Quite specific devices for us. But, actually, why not? Lenovo distinguishes as the advantages of this model:
Price:$1,999.11 Razer Blade Stealth 13
Razer Blade Stealth 13 best laptop for kali Linux The winner of today’s rating The best laptop for kali Linux is a laptop from the well-known company Razer. This company produces not only gaming peripherals but also excellent laptops that allow you to perform quality work. This laptop model may seem too expensive because powerful components were introduced into it. If you are looking for a laptop not only for hacking but also for your pleasure, then you must take this one.
Price:$1,349.00 HP ProBook 450 G8 Business
HP ProBook 450 G8 Business Intel Core i5-1135G7 Processor A quality laptop is not easy to find. Glossy screens, noisy fans, uncomfortable keyboards are everywhere. But the HP ProBook 450 G8 Business lacks all of these drawbacks. The ProBook brand belongs to the ‘working’ series of notebooks. These, according to HP, should be in offices and workplaces. More often than not, you can take them with you on trips due to the decent battery life. And for some time now they are even suitable for games, because discrete video cards are increasingly found in this category of devices! The ProBook is a good laptop for ethical hacking and for sure it will do the job perfectly
Price:$1,999.77 LG gram Laptop
LG gram laptops meet the requirements of the American military standard MIL-STD 810, that is, they are shockproof, support DTS X Ultra and Wi-Fi 6, have a built-in fingerprint reader and it’s one of the best laptop to run kali Linux. This laptops have rechargeable batteries with a capacity of 72 to 80 Wh. The lightweight magnesium alloy of the case allowed to reduce the weight. Another major innovation is this laptop is the use of 11th generation Intel Tiger Lake processors. These 10nm processors are paired with the powerful Intel Iris Xe GPU. In addition, they got 8/16 GB of LPDDR4x RAM and slots for M.2 Dual SSD (NVMe). It is also worth noting the presence of USB 4 Gen3x2 ports (USB PD, Thunderbolt 4), USB 3.2 Gen2, HDMI, microSD / UFS. is this a Kali Linux friendly laptop ? it is indeed a very good laptop
Price:$899.00 MSI GL62M 7RD-1407 15.6
MSI GL62M 7RD-1407 15.6 This is an entry level gaming laptop from MSI, a Gaming laptop in most case is perfect for Kali Linux, it’s powerful and will hold up a good battery life.
Price:$2,299.00 ASUS VivoBook Pro Thin
ASUS VivoBook Pro Thin & Light Laptop ASUS has several lines of laptop computers, from low-cost converters to top-end gaming solutions. Globally, almost everyone will find something more or less suitable among all these laptops The Vivobook pro is not the cheapest, but it’s one of the best Laptop in our list today. Computer for hackerLet’s start with the good news – for penetration testing, hacking, any average computer is suitable. If you decide to get involved in a new hobby or learn computer security (very useful for web application programmers, and everyone else who would not like to become a victim of hackers), then you do not need to go to the store for a new computer. However, when choosing a new computer, you can take into account some aspects that will help your computer (and therefore you) be more effective in some tasks. Desktop or laptop?The desktop computer has many advantages: it is more powerful, cheaper, easier to upgrade and repair, it has a more convenient keyboard, more ports, a larger screen and much more. And only one drawback is the lack of mobility. If you do not have the task of traveling, and in general you are just learning, then a desktop computer will be preferable. Pentester Graphics CardWe need a video card, of course, not for games. We need it to iterate over the hash sums (hashes). A hash is a result of data processing using a special algorithm (hash function). Their feature is that the same data has the same hashes. But from the hash, it is impossible to restore the original data. This is especially often used, for example, in web applications. Instead of storing passwords in clear text, most websites have hashes of these passwords. If you enter your username and password, the website calculates the hash for the password you entered and compares whether it matches the one that was saved earlier. If it matches, then you entered the correct password and get access to the site. What is all this for? Imagine that a hacker managed to gain access to the database (for example, through SQL injection) and he recognized all the hashes on the site. You can recover a password from a hash, for example, by brute force (there are still rainbow tables , but now it’s not about them, and the essence of them comes down to the same thing – computing hashes for password candidates). We take the candidate for passwords, for example, “superbit” considers the hash amount for it, compares it with the existing hash amount – if they match, then the password for the user is “superbit”, if not, then we take the next candidate for passwords, for example, “Dklma7love”, we consider the hash amount for it, compare it with the one that we learned from the site database, if it matches, then we know the password, if not, we continue. This operation (hashing enumeration) can be done using the central processor; there are many programs that can do this. But it was noticed that it is much faster to sort out hashes using a video card. Compared to the CPU, the use of the GPU increases the search speed by tens, hundreds, thousands and more times! Naturally, the faster the hashes get over, the more likely it is to bring a successful hack closer. Popular graphics cards are AMD, GeForce and Intel HD Graphics. Intel HD Graphics is not always useful, they are not particularly powerful and they are not bought separately – therefore, we will not dwell on them much. The main choice is between AMD and GeForce. Much more popular are the GeForce graphics cards. They have proven themselves in games, they have a huge army of fans. But AMD is better suited for sorting hashes, as if this would not upset GeForce fans. AMD video cards from the middle price category show about the same results as the GeForce video cards from the top category. Those. instead of one top-end GeForce, you can buy 2 AMD cheaper and get a higher hash speed. I rethought this moment. Comparing the data from this table and prices in online stores, I came to the conclusion that there is no difference. Top-end GeForce more than twice the power of top-end Radeon. And the price is about twice as high. Plus, you need to know that AMD drivers have a very painful relationship with most Linux distributions. Currently, hashcat on Linux only supports AMDGPU-Pro, which only supports newer graphics cards. And even if you plan to buy a computer with a new AMD graphics card, for a start, check out the list of supported Linux distributions – it’s scanty, it’s possible that your OS is not there. In general, it is possible that at one time Radeon was really better than GeForce for sorting passwords, at one time AMD drivers were installed in Linux with one command, but now this is not so. If I were building a computer or buying a laptop now, I would choose models with a GeForce. Iteration of hashes will be needed:
Network equipment / WiFi adapter If you are going to crack WiFi, then not all wireless network cards are suitable. If this is important to you Pleas check our list of best adapters. RAM If you plan to use the OS for pentesting in a virtual machine, then in this situation it is better to take care of a sufficient amount of RAM. The needs of virtual machines in RAM:
For example, I have 8 gigabytes in the main system, I allocated 2 gigabytes of RAM on Arch Linux and Kali Linux, I run them (if necessary) at the same time and work comfortably in them. If you plan to use the OS for Pententing in virtual machines, then I would recommend having at least 8 gigabytes in any way – this is enough to comfortably run one or two systems, and in these systems most programs. Nevertheless, if you plan to run many programs (or one program in many threads), or if you want to build a virtual sit down from several virtual machines, then 16 gigabytes will not be superfluous (I plan to increase up to 16 gigabytes on my laptop, since there are two empty slots). Anything more than 16 gigabytes of RAM is unlikely to ever be useful to you when pentesting. CPU The vast majority of programs (except those that sort hashes) are not demanding on processor power. HDD we have come to the end of this article, but we are waiting to hear from you, what you think is the best laptop for Kali Linux? CommentsCynthia Estes says Thank you for this perfect list, for me the best hacking laptop is ASUS VivoBook Pro Thin, a powerful thin light laptop that can easy handle kali Linux and do all what I need with GTX 1050 it help finding the password from hash much faster then CPU hashing Источник |
