20 Things To Do After Installing Kali Li
20 Things To Do After Installing Kali Li
20 Things To Do After Installing Kali Li
Kali Linux
Standard Packages:
Standard packages contains anything and everything I found useful. This list if divided
into 3 parts:
Kali Specific
Kali Linux is a special build from Debian. Kali Linux inherits a lot of the issues from
Debian Linux. This section shows you how to resolve of those. They are not specific to
Kali Linux only and you might be leave them as it is, but I found that if I see an error my
OCD kicks in and I have to make it go away…
A collection of utilities and software’s I found useful. These are day to day software’s
that are available in most other Linux distributions or at least I think they should be
made available as part of a default installation.
Kali Linux is made to boot up fast and low of resources. But if you have some more
CPU and GPU power to spare, you might want to try to make it look more colorful.
Kali Specific:
[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile
[ifupdown]
managed=true
Read the full article on fixing Wired Network interface “Device not managed” error in
Debian or Kali Linux.
2. Fix default repository
The simplest way is to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list remove or comment every-line with
# at the front and add the following lines..
leafpad /etc/apt/sources.list
## Regular repositories
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali main non-free contrib
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free
## Source repositories
deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali kali main non-free contrib
deb-src http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free
Save and close the file. Details and explanations can be found in adding official Kali
Linux Repositories page.
3. Update, Upgrade, Dist-Upgrade
Clean, update, upgrade and dist-upgrade your Kali installation.
apt-get clean && apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get dist-upgrade -y
4. Fix PulseAudio warning
My Kali throws me this warning:
Debian variants also throws similar warning during boot.To fix this do the following:
leafpad /etc/default/pulseaudio
PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=0
Replace 0 with 1
PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=1
reboot
Details and explanations can be found in Fixing PulseAudio configured for per-user
sessions … (warning) in Kali Linux page.
5. Enable sound on Boot
Follow the steps below to fix sound mute in Kali Linux on boot
Right Click on the small volume ICON and select Sound Preferences
Alternatively, you can also go to Applications > System Tools > Preferences >
System Settings > Sound to bring up the same options.
Use the Output volume slider to ON, shown similar the screenshot above.
That’s it you’re done. Close Sound window.
Details and explanations can be found in fixing sound mute in Kali Linux on boot page.
6. Install Java
Go to the following link and download jdk7. At the time of writing this guide the jdk
version was jdk-7u45-linux-x64. Note that I’m using x64 which is 64-bit. 32-bit users
should choose their versions accordingly. Not that tough really!
Following is what I’ve used. JDK-7u45-Linux-x64 At the time of writing this guide the
available version was jdk-7u45-linux-x64.tar.gz Download and save the file in /root
directory.
This step registers the downloaded version of Java as an alternative, and switches it to
be used as the default:
Follow installing Java JDK in Kali Linux post for step by step instructions and testing
options.
7. Install Flash
This is fairly simple and easy and should work from most people out there: In the
terminal:
update-flashplugin-nonfree --install
apt-get install unrar unace rar unrar p7zip zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar file-roller -y
You can now find Archive Manager in Applications > Accessories > Archive
Manager.
9. Add a standard user
Kali Linux got only root user by default. While most applications require root access, it’s
always a good idea to add a second user. Open terminal and type following to create
new user (replace user1 with your desired user name)
useradd -m user1
passwd user1
Enter desired password twice Add user to sudo group (to allow user to install software,
allow printing, use privileged mode etc.)
To learn more, follow this excellent and detailed post on adding remove user (standard
user/non-root) in Kali Linux. This post explains how to add a user with all user
directories already in place (thereby avoiding “Could not update .ICEauthority
var/lib/gdm3/.ICEauthority” or any error containing .ICEauthority or permission in
general.
10. Add add-apt-repository
Debian allows users to add and use PPA repositories by an application named add-apt-
repository however, Kali Linux didn’t include this in their default package list. With Kali,
because this is a special purpose application and certain modifications were made to
make it work for what it does best (Penetration Test). To enable PPA Repository via add-
apt-repository application, follow the steps below: First install Python Software
properties package.
Update apt-file .
apt-file update
This takes a while, so in case your apt-file update is SLOW, you might want to try and
fix that as well. (Note that I got repo.kali.org in my /etc/apt/sources.list file instead of
http.kali.org .) Once apt-file update is complete, you should be able to search for it.
cd /usr/sbin
vi add-apt-repository
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -eq 1 ]
NM=`uname -a && date`
NAME=`echo $NM | md5sum | cut -f1 -d" "`
then
ppa_name=`echo "$1" | cut -d":" -f2 -s`
if [ -z "$ppa_name" ]
then
echo "PPA name not found"
echo "Utility to add PPA repositories in your debian machine"
echo "$0 ppa:user/ppa-name"
else
echo "$ppa_name"
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/$ppa_name/ubuntu oneiric main " >>
/etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update >> /dev/null 2> /tmp/${NAME}_apt_add_key.txt
key=`cat /tmp/${NAME}_apt_add_key.txt | cut -d":" -f6 | cut -d" " -f3`
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys $key
rm -rf /tmp/${NAME}_apt_add_key.txt
fi
else
echo "Utility to add PPA repositories in your debian machine"
echo "$0 ppa:user/ppa-name"
fi
Now that we added the correct code, we can use add-apt-repository to add a PPA
repository. I tried the following to add themes and custom icons in Kali Linux.
/usr/sbin/add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/themes
/usr/sbin/add-apt-repository ppa:alecive/antigone
I’ve removed all screenshots from this post, but if you want see read and understand
how it all works, I suggest reading the details post on adding PPA repository add-apt-
repository in Kali Linux.
11. Install Tor
Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis,
a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential
business activities and relationships, and state security. This guide guides your through
installing tor in Kali Linux. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a
distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents
somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it
prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.
Tor is available in Kali repository, to install it directly from the repository open your
Terminal and type this:
To keep things simple in this post, I’ve only shows one part of using Tor. You might want
to read the full details in Installing Tor In Kali Linux post.
12. Install Filezilla FTP Client
No Linux installation is complete with a proper fully fledged FTP Client. Filezilla is the
best out there, so install Filezilla using the following command:
htop
nethogs eth0
nethogs wlan0
Read details here to and find out how to change or install GTK3 themes in Kali Linux.
18. Install a new desktop environment (I prefer XFCE).
I prefer XFCE Desktop, but you can try to install/remove different Desktop Environments
or Window Manager in Kali Linux Depending on which one you need choose links
below:
In the daemon section un-comment the 2 lines for automatic login. It should finally look
like this
[daemon]
# Enabling automatic login
AutomaticLoginEnable = true
AutomaticLogin = root
That’s it. Too easy. In case you’re wondering how to use a different user than root ,
here’s how
[daemon]
# Enabling automatic login
AutomaticLoginEnable = true
AutomaticLogin = myanotheruser
Last but not the least, reboot to check if it worked. (which it will, cause it’s Linux and Kali
is awesome)
reboot
You might want to follow up on this one or if you’re KDE user, then here’s the
instructions to Auto login root user at system start in Kali Linux – GNOME and KDE.
This article also shows how to auto-login a different non-root user… quite handy.
More Advanced stuffs:
This part explains how to get more out of your system, specially Graphics card.
20. Unlock GPU processing
Last but not the least, GPU processing is a lot faster when you’re trying to break a
password. Depending on your Graphics card, you choose options as outlined below:
a. AMD
b. NVIDIA
NVIDIA users can just stick to the official documentation for installing NVIDIA Drivers.
In case, official documentation is not working or you’ve hit rock bottom, you can try
following this other post I’ve written to install NVIDIA binary drivers manually.
Conclusion
Hope you’ve found these useful. You might not have to use all of these, but some are
definitely recommended. Thanks for reading. Please share.
John Sheeks
Cyber Engineer
US Army Cyber Protection Brigade