Kali Linux on MS Windows 10

MS Windows 10 have been an interesting change for Microsoft operating system, and maybe MS Windows 11 will build on its capability to work with more operating systems.

Here is how to update MS Windows 10 to run Kali Linux, a Debian based Linux operating system. Its the basic system, and supports installation of additional Linux tools. Among default tools available are

• BruteShark - Network Forensic Analysis Tool (NFAT)
• Evil-WinRM - Ultimate WinRM shell
• Hakrawler - Web crawler designed for easy, quick discovery of endpoints and assets
• Httpx - Fast and multi-purpose HTTP toolkit
• LAPSDumper - Dumps LAPS passwords
• PhpSploit - Stealth post-exploitation framework
• PEDump - Dump Win32 executable files
• SentryPeer - SIP peer-to-peer honeypot for VoIP
• Sparrow-wifi - Graphical Wi-Fi Analyzer for Linux
• wifipumpkin3 - Powerful framework for rogue access points

On MS Windows, the WSL2 component needs to be downloaded and configured.

Firstly, open Powershell prompt as Administrator.

In the prompt type,

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform -norestart 

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all

Download and install (double click the file and follow the instructions) the wsl_update for your specific computer architecture. e.g. x64. Reboot the computer.

open Powershell prompt as Administrator.

In the prompt type,

wsl --set-default-version 2

Open microsoft app store and install Kali Linux (https://aka.ms/wslstore). Click get, then Open. A command prompt screen will appear and start to initialise.

Enter a default username (without spaces or special characters). Then enter the password and verify.

By default, Kali Linux installs dbus-x11 to access Linux desktop.

Install a user desktop

On debian systems, the command apt-get installs additional packages to provide more tools and features. XFCE is a light weight desktop that provide a windows like environment to run applications, instead of the command line prompt only.

Its fun to run Linux commands on the Verify that you can access internet and install additional Linux apps with the following command

sudo apt-get install wget

Lets download the XFCE desktop and install

sudo apt-get install kali-defaults kali-root-login desktop-base xfce4 xfce4-places-plugin xfce4-goodies

sudo apt install -y kali-desktop-xfce xrdp

When asked to select the “Default display manager”, choose lightdm

Now, its time to go get some coffee after the following command as the download size is over 1.2Gb. But keep an eye on the terminal as it will prompt for your input. 

Choosing different desktops

If you have other desktops, the default can be shown by

update-alternatives --config x-session-manager

After the install is done, start the desktop 

During installation, troubleshooting: 

There is an error "kali-desktop-base_2022.4.5_all.deb  404  Not Found", it may be due to the default Kali not able to find the updated URL of resources. Run the following commands;

apt-get update

apt-get install kali-defaults kali-root-login desktop-base xfce4 xfce4-places-plugin xfce4-goodies --fix-missing

Dont know which XRDP port?

sudo lsof -i -P -n | grep LISTEN

Access Linux desktop on MS Windows

On a regular Kali Linux, command to start xfce is "systemctl enable xrdp --now". But the WSL version provided doesnt support this. Lets configure xfce for larger screens, then start xfce. 

cp /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini.backup

sed -i 's/3389/3390/g' /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

sed -i 's/max_bpp=32/#max_bpp=32\nmax_bpp=128/g' /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

sed -i 's/xserverbpp=24/#xserverbpp=24\nxserverbpp=128/g' /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

/etc/init.d/xrdp start

To stop the desktop

sudo /etc/init.d/xrdp stop

This will result in a port number being use for the desktop access. Refe to the file /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini for details. E.g. port 3390.

From the Windows Start, Open up Remote Desktop (mstsc) and connect to localhost:3390

Login with the username you provided at the installation stage.

View incoming packets

Login to Kali Linux command prompt,

apt-get install pktstat

pktstat -n

Access USB device (not working)

Install the required 3rd party packages. At this moment, I have only managed to get it working on Ubuntu. Will update for Kali in future if there is a solution.

The following command should display detected disk, however Kali failed as MS Windows 10 did not have USB pass through. 

fdisk -l

Open wsl, the default ubuntu and install the usb tools

sudo apt-get update &&  apt install linux-tools-common  linux-tools-generic hwdata

Login to Kali Linux

winget install --interactive --exact dorssel.usbipd-win

apt-get install usbip

Install top 10 Kali tools

A list of top 10 tools is available, which takes over 2.2Gb storage size. The command is

apt-get install kali-tools-top10

Ref: 

Kali.org

USBIPD

XDA USB

Another XDA USB

Tinker and Controller methods

 Tinker is the tool for command line debugging in Laravel. 

To start the tool, type

php artisan tinker

Create an object from Model

In tinker command line, objects can be created and saved to database. E.g.

$user = new App\Model\User

$user->name = "Tboxmy"

$user->email = "tboxmy@yahoo.com"

$user->save()

Then to display the content of object;

$user

Finding data from model

The eloquent function find( ) allows retrieving from the database, given its default index id. e.g.

$user = App\Model\User::find(2)

Then to display the content of object;

$user

Another approach is to use the function where( ) to retrieve based on the table column names. e.g.

$user = App\Model\User::where('name','Tboxmy')->first( )

Or to retrieve all those related values

$user = App\Model\User::where('id', '>', 2)->first( )

Then to display the content of object;

$user

Introduction to app() and how to call a method in a controller?

A helper object app( ) allows access to the different functions to access a model or controller. The call( ) function is one of the app( ) functions, it is used to access a method inside a controller. e.g. in the controller have a method declared as following;

public function methodName($id=0, $name=null){

. . .

}

The function call( ) can then be used this way;

app()->call(' App\Http\Controllers\HomeController@methodName');

When working with different Controllers, its useful to declare these as variables using the make( ) function. Here is how its done;

$controller = app()->make('App\Http\Controllers\HomeController');

app()->call([$controller, 'methodName'] );

How to pass parameters to methods in a controller? 

This is done with the function call( ) where parameter 2 contains the method parameters. Using the method above, here is how its done;

app()->call([$controller, 'methodName'], [ 'id' => 2, 'name' => 'Tboxmy'] );

Save linux output to jpg or image file

 There are cases where from the Linux terminal, it is required to post the output as an attachment in jpg or png. If ImageMagick is installed, this can be done easily, otherwise they use the traditional command pr to provide the output to printer.

Pre-requisite

Install ImageMagick

Combine the command convert with the output. E.g. output of the route command can be saved as png

route  | convert label:@- myroutetable.png

Next to add data into the png image.

$ convert myroutetable.png \

>  -set 'Copyright' 'CC-BY-SA 4.0'\

>  -set 'Title' 'Routing Table for Linux' \

> routetable.png

The content can then be viewed by the command hexdump

hexdump -C routetable.png

Or

strings routetable.png

Find files by data and type in Linux

 How do I find files in a Linux system? or specifically on Centos Linus?

The command ls will list files in a specific directory. Using the asterisk (*) its possible to display list of files and directory with wildcards. 

E.g.

ls -l

ls -lt

ls -lrt

ls /etc

ls /etc/h*

Search files with command grep and ls

ls -lt /etc/ | grep filename

Search files with command find

find directory -type f -name filename

The command find provide more flexibility in search for files.

Search ordinary files that has the extension .cpp

find /home/you -iname "*.cpp" -type f

Search ordinary files that has the extension .cpp that are more than 30 days

find /home/you -iname "*.cpp" -atime -30 -type f

Search files from a given modified date

find . -type f -newermt 2023-01-01

Search files from a given access date

find . -type f -newerat 2017-09-25 ! -newerat 2017-09-26

Search files given a date range

touch --date "2007-01-01" /tmp/start.file

touch --date "2008-01-01" /tmp/end.file

find /data/images -type f -newer /tmp/start.file -not -newer /tmp/end.file

Copy Postgresql database to another server

 Notes for Postgresql 11,12

This approach allows an SQL file to be copied to a destination server and install using that sql file.

On the source server

pg_dump -C -Fp -f dump.sql -U postgres database_name

Copy the file dump.sql to the destination server. On the destination server

psql -U postgres -f dump.sql