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How to install Kali Linux on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

This is how I installed Kali Linux on an ARM device, namely the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.

Table of contents
  1. Getting started
    1. Prerequsites
  2. Emergency mode
  3. Change SSH host keys
  4. Change root password
  5. Expand installation
  6. Update and upgrade
  7. WiFi
  8. Errors
    1. E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
  9. Authors
  10. Acknowledgments

Getting started

Download Kali Linux for ARM architecture: https://www.offensive-security.com/kali-linux-arm-images/ NB! These images have a default password of “toor” and may have pre-generated SSH host keys

Verify the SHA256:

zxcv:Downloads mitnick$ shasum -a 256 kali-linux-2019.3a-rpi3-nexmon.img.xz

Compare it to what is listed on the download site.

Extract kali-linux-2019.3a-rpi3-nexmon.img.xz. Fire up balenaEtcher (macOS) and “Select Image”, “Select target” and press “Flash!”.

Insert your SD card into your Raspberry Pi and hook it up to a monitor + keyboard.

Prerequsites

  • Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

Emergency mode

If you happen to enter emergency mode when booting, you should modify fstab, after you enter the default root password toor.

nano /etc/fstab

#/dev/mmcblk0p2  / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/mmcblk0p2  /  ext4 ro 0 1

This should mount the rootfs as read-only on the next reboot.

Reboot system using:

shutdown -rF now

Run fsck -fy, if the system hasn’t already

Remount the rootfs as read-write using:

mount -o remount,rw /dev/mmcblk0p2

(IMPORTANT) Change /etc/fstab back to normal, thus:

/dev/mmcblk0p2  / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
#/dev/mmcblk0p2  /  ext4 ro 0 1

If /etc/fstab doesn’t get changed back to normal, then the system will always mount the rootfs as read-only.

Reboot.

Change SSH host keys 

root@kali:~ rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*
root@kali:~ dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server
root@kali:~ service ssh restart

Change root password 

root@kali:~ passwd root

Expand installation

All the available space on your SD card is not in use- view the disk space by issuing df -h:

root@kali:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root       4.5G  3.9G  284M  94% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           464M  660K  463M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1  122M   67M   55M  55% /boot
tmpfs            93M  4.0K   93M   1% /run/user/113
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/0
root@kali:~#

Show the usable space for your SD card:

root@kali:~# fdisk -l /dev/mmcblk0
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 14.47 GiB, 15523119104 bytes, 30318592 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: 0x08dd1e94

Device         Boot  Start      End  Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk0p1           1   250000   250000 122.1M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk0p2      250001 30308863 30058863  14.3G 83 Linux
root@kali:~#

Expand your installation to the size of the partition with resize2fs:

root@kali:~# resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p2 
root@kali:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  3.9G  9.6G  29% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           464M  660K  463M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1  122M   67M   55M  55% /boot
tmpfs            93M  4.0K   93M   1% /run/user/113
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/0

Update and upgrade

Update:

root@kali:~# apt-get update

Upgrade:

root@kali:~# apt-get upgrade

Do a dist-upgrade:

root@kali:~# apt-get dist-upgrade

And use apt autoremove to remove packages that are no longer required.

WiFi

Use iwlist to scan for wireless networks:

root@kali:~# iwlist wlan0 scan

ESSID is the name of the network.

Encrypt the WPA password for the ESSID you wish to connect to:

root@kali:~# wpa_passphrase "Pretty Fly For A 2.4GHz WiFi" Ultimate-P4ssw0rd > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
network={
	ssid="Pretty Fly For A 2.4GHz WiFi"
	#psk="Ultimate-P4ssw0rd"
	psk=5213529740af2ecc21237b450cca7ef3a271e4ae55c5273d79867abbbaed75f5
}

Delete the commented-out plain text password from the file (#psk="Ultimate-P4ssw0rd")

root@kali:~# nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Restart the wpa_supplicant process with killall and wpa_supplicant with -i to specify interface, and -c for configuration file (-B is for background process). Run dhclient wlan0 for making it requesting an IP from the DHCP server:

root@kali:~# killall wpa_supplicant
root@kali:~# wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 
root@kali:~# dhclient wlan0

Now our Raspberry Pi should be connected to the specific WiFi network!

root@kali:~# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.13.140  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.13.255
        ether 9a:cd:4b:d9:74:a3  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 295  bytes 16425 (16.0 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 64  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 6  bytes 1324 (1.2 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Errors

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Try to reconfigure the package database. Probably the database got corrupted while installing a package. Reconfiguring often fixes the problem:

root@kali:~# dpkg --configure -a

And then try to issue apt-get upgrade. If that does not work, this worked for me:

root@kali:~# apt clean
root@kali:~# apt --fix-broken install
root@kali:~# apt-get upgrade

Authors

Mr. Johnson

Acknowledgments