Hi everyone. I've been trying to get Kali NetHunter Rootless working on my Android 12 phone for hours and I'm completely stuck.

The installation finishes without any errors and when I run `kex start` it says the TigerVNC server started on `localhost:1` (port 5901). But a few seconds later it exits by itself. `kex status` shows no active sessions and the terminal ends with:

X connection to :1 broken
The Xtigervnc server cleanly exited!

When I open the NetHunter KeX app it always says **Connection refused** on `localhost:5901`.

I've already made sure XFCE is installed, `startxfce4` exists, created the `~/.vnc/xstartup` file, fixed the DNS issue so `apt update` works, but nothing changed. I also noticed `apt upgrade` fails because of a `systemd` error about `/etc/machine-id`, although I'm not sure if that's related.

At this point I don't know if I missed something or if my NetHunter installation is broken. Has anyone seen this before or knows what could be causing the VNC server to exit immediately? Any help would be appreciated.

Just upgraded from MacBook Pro with m2 pro chip to M2 pro with M5 Pro...install Kali on a VM using VMWare Fusion as hypervisor. Hashcat will not run...evidently the open cl was removed from ARM repo

Anyone got a solution please help

I use my laptop which is my main machine for almost everything. I'm a student pursuing cybersec not a larper ( let me clear that ).

I've installed kali on a different device which I've specifically built for learning and breaking. I was wondering if it's safe to login with Google into the browser as I have my bookmarks and certain accounts there.

Also I would use basic applications such as Discord, Spotify , stremio with my acc nothing more and maybe some development ( optional)

And storing some not so important files as my desktop has more storage.

Does using kali make my device even more vulnerable?

I have an old laptop MSI g65 stealth 8sg where I have a bare metal installation of Kali.

On kernel 6.19.14 with nvidia driver 550.163.01 I could connect two external displays, one using the HDMI port, and another using a usb-c to hdmi dongle.

After full system upgrade and the respective kernel 7.0.12, I had to purge all nvidia packages, and installed the latest nvidia driver 595.84 from nvidia site. Now the hdmi connected monitor is simply "dead" . Any idea on how to solve/diagnose this?

For an easier understanding here is a chronologically correct order of events:

• Kernel 6.19.14 with nvidia driver 550 - both ports working usb-c and hdmi

• then apt full-upgrade

• Kernel 7.0.12 with nvidia driver 550 - none of the ports worked

• purged all nvidia related packages because the driver was installed from debian packages

• installed nvidia driver 595 via .run installer from nvidia (chose the option for proprietary drivers)

• system was not booting, and had no TTY.

• blacklisted nouveau

• system boots and usb-c display works but hdmi does not

Ok, so I've been building lots of linux distros on different platforms for years, and this is the first time I've run into this.
I'm currently trying to put Kali on both a Raspberry Pi 5 and a laptop. Both installs work great.
I am able to get OpenSSH working on both, so accessing the boxes from somewhere else on the network isn't an issue.
However, there are some circumstances under which I would like to RDP into the box, and that is where the problem is.
I install XRDP using apt. I enable and start it using systemctl. However, whenever I try to RDP into it, I get a generic "Cannot connect to this RDP server" message...

When I check systemctl for a status, the only thing I see that is different than other times I have set it up is this line:

I'm used to seeing "service; enabled; preset: enabled", but here it is giving me "preset: disabled", nor am I familiar with the warnings below it".

This only appears to be happening on Kali.

Can anyone offer any advice or guidance?

(OpenSSH is working fine, so please don't tell me to use that instead. I know how to use SSH.)

Thanks in advance.

Im trying to install Kali as a VM on my Linux laptop using qemu and virt-manager. However when the installation is complete the image is scaled up and blurry and if I up the resolution to my monitors one (1080p) it still looks blurry even with scaling turned off and the mouse clicks register far from where the pointer is. Has anyone had this problem?

### Hardware & System Information

- **Laptop Model:** Infinix X2 Slim Intel Core i3 11th Gen 1115G4

- **OS:** Kali Linux (Rolling)

- **Kernel Version:** 6.19.14+kali-amd64

- **Audio Server:** PipeWire (WirePlumber)

### Problem Description

I am unable to get any audio output from my internal laptop speakers. The audio card is detected by the kernel and appears in `aplay -l`, but no sound is produced. Bluetooth audio works perfectly fine, confirming that the audio server layer is operational.

### Diagnostic Outputs

1. **Output of `aplay -l`:**

card 0: sofessx8336 [sof-essx8336], device 0: ES8336 (*) []

Subdevices: 1/1

Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 0: sofessx8336 [sof-essx8336], device 5: HDMI 1 (*) [HDMI 1]

card 0: sofessx8336 [sof-essx8336], device 6: HDMI 2 (*) [HDMI 2]

card 0: sofessx8336 [sof-essx8336], device 7: HDMI 3 (*) [HDMI 3]

1. **Error during `sudo alsactl init`:**

When attempting to initialize ALSA, the system throws the following UCM sequence execution error, indicating a control-name mismatch or missing routing bits in the UCM configuration:

### Steps Already Tried

- Attempted overriding options using `snd_soc_sof_8336 quirk=0x01` and `0xf0` via modprobe configuration, but with no success.

- Cleaned user-level PipeWire state directories (`~/.config/pulse` and `~/.local/state/wireplumber`).

- Restoring `asound.state` from the official community repository failed to match the control switches.

The hardware works flawlessly on Windows, indicating this is purely a Linux pin-routing/UCM mapping issue for this specific motherboard topology.

Could anyone guide me on how to supply the correct quirk parameters or patch

This framework is driving me insane. I've waited for 4 hours but not a single progress. It's stuck on this damn metasploit and it broke msfconsole for me because I've tried to update it multiple times and all those times it got stuck on this framework and once again it does the same.

I recently installed Kali linux on my T470 thinkpad from lenovo. it has a 7th gen i5. My cpu usage is very high and the gpu never appears to go over 0% usage. Any ideas?

Hello everybody. Before I start, I would like to say that I am but an intern with only a couple years of experience with Linux in general. I have done a good few projects with such, but this one has been the hardest and most impossible seeming thus far. Recently, I have been attempting to create an unattended Kali boot USB so that I can install it on multiple computers without having to go through the installation process on each one. I believe I have successfully made a preseed.cfg file, so that I do not need help with. However, after many hours of attempts, looking at forums, and even using the Debian installer wiki, I have been unable to actually load the file. I have used two methods of doing such with the following problems:

• Saving the preseed file to the root of a USB
  • With this method, I had multiple issues, such as being unable to actually locate the file once in the installer menu, having a long list of checksum errors, or the USB not being seen as a valid Debian install. I would like to note that I used, Rufus, Balena Etcher, and a image burner(ImgBurn), all to no avail.
• Saving the preseed file to the initrd in the ISO
  • I specifically used this tutorial. following it, I was able to make a bootable USB with the Kali ISO and preseed file, with the preseed being put into the initrd. Every forum and tutorial I had found stated that with this method, the system should be able to automatically find and use the preseed. Unfortunately, this was not the case. To make matters worse, I believe the specific computer I am using(an Intel Nuc D54, manufactured in 2014) was unable to boot with UEFI(I think is the right term?), leaving me unable to open the Grub CLI to be able to look for the file manually and use boot parameters.

For a sense of my situation, it is good to note I have spent well over 10 hours working on this... supposedly easy project. My progress, although not functional, has taught me a lot, and I have been glad to work through this, at least to this point as I feel like the wall I have hit is much taller than all the others. Currently, I am attempting the second method but having issues accessing the Grub CLI as I stated before. After various searches, I have been unable to find an alternative way of opening it or other methods to use in general(for example, I am not able to use a PXE install). Any help is greatly appreciated! I will try to respond as soon as possible for extra questions anyone might have. Thank you!

An Android app called Podroid allows USB passthrough to a containerized Linux distro (Alpine Linux) that has it's own kernel and kernel modules, and it can, for example, access a USB wireless adapter that has monitoring and packet injection capabilities, which will work with common network pentesting and auditing tools.

With Kali Linux (Distro and Kernel)… I can see endless possibilities.

I had very good experience with it on S24 Ultra without root/bootloader unlock.

Hi everyone, I am having trouble installing/updating the kernel in Kali Linux
My current kernel is :6.6.15-amd64
I want to install last kernel (update)
I have problems …
See on pics
The errors
Any help to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated!

Ok so I have a more involved networking project in C, it works great on all major linux distros and windows too, I've ran it on a newer release of Kali (2026.1) and observed a very weird issue. When I started investigating I've found that calls to time(NULL) from different files yield 2 different results (~7 hour difference always). I use gcc and compile with gnu89 flag.

PS: it runs ok on older versions of Kali (2025.1).

The question: how is this possible? what could be causing this?

Wanted to share my latest portable build — a rugged, high-performance field node designed for heavy workloads without breaking a sweat.

The whole system is housed in a custom rugged enclosure finished with a UV-reactive neon splatter paint job that really pops under blacklight.

Hardware & OS Setup

I’m running full Kali Linux on a portable touchscreen setup, with a clean LightDM login environment.

Instead of using a MicroSD card, the system boots entirely from a 128GB M.2 NVMe SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure, giving it proper desktop-class responsiveness and strong random read/write performance over the 5 Gbps bus.

To keep memory pressure under control, I’ve enabled ZRAM compression, so inactive memory gets compressed in RAM instead of constantly hitting swap. It keeps things smooth even under load.

Cooling & Overclocking

To support a stable overclock, I built a dual-stage cooling setup inside the case:

• Primary low-profile heatsink + fan directly over the SoC and power management
• Secondary side-mounted exhaust fan to actively pull hot air out of the enclosure

This creates constant airflow across the board and keeps thermals stable even under sustained load.

Stress Testing

Under a synthetic multi-threaded stress test (stress-ng), the system holds up solid:

• Clock speed: ~2.7 GHz stable
• Temperature: ~65°C under full load
• Thermal throttling threshold: ~80°C+

The dual-fan setup keeps it well within safe thermal headroom even during sustained workloads.

Wrap-up

Overall goal was a compact, durable field system that behaves more like a mini workstation than a typical SBC setup — fast storage, controlled thermals, and stable performance under load.

Curious what others think about the build or the aesthetic direction.

Hey guys, I'm new to the subredit, and here's my thing: so I knlw that kali is well prepared for hacking and comes with a bunch of installed things specifically for that, but I'm wondering, how reliable is to use Kali linux for ethical hacking and also as a development/study environment? Such as, web apps, programming, in vs code or any other IDE

Cause I must say, I'm fairly new to hakcking and I've heard that sometimes it's more recommended to use a kali linux VM for hacking? Would that be for comfortability or security issues?

Anyways tysm guys for reading, hope you have a nice day ;)

TL;DR Automated Script: syna-tudor-kali.sh (Gist)

Context

The Synaptics sensor (USB ID 06cb:00be, common in Lenovo ThinkPad L14/L15 Gen 1) lacks upstream libfprint support because it uses a proprietary protocol with on-device firmware (BMKT/Tudor). Adding the PID to standard libfprint fails during firmware initialization.

The Fix: Install libfprint-tod (Touch OEM Drivers fork) alongside synaTudor, which dynamically relinks the Windows driver DLLs to run on Linux.

Installation

1. Install Dependencies

Bash

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    libusb-1.0-0-dev libglib2.0-dev libpixman-1-dev \
    libnss3-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev \
    libgirepository1.0-dev meson ninja-build \
    gobject-introspection gtk-doc-tools git \
    libgusb-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libudev-dev \
    innoextract libcap-dev libseccomp-dev \
    libdbus-1-dev libjson-glib-dev

2. Build libfprint-tod

Bash

git clone --branch tod --depth=1 https://github.com/craigcabrey/libfprint-tod.git ~/libfprint-tod
cd ~/libfprint-tod
meson setup build --prefix=/usr -Dudev_rules=disabled -Dudev_hwdb=disabled
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install
sudo ldconfig

3. Build synaTudor

Bash

git clone https://github.com/Popax21/synaTudor.git ~/synaTudor
cd ~/synaTudor

Required Patch: Before building, edit libfprint-tod/meson.build to fix udev dependencies:

1. Change udev_dep = dependency('udev') → udev_dep = dependency('udev', required: false)
2. Change install_dir: udev_dep.get_variable(pkgconfig: 'udevdir') → install_dir: udev_rules_dir

Build and Install:

Bash

meson setup build
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install
sudo ldconfig

4. Enable Services & Enroll

Bash

# Start required services
sudo systemctl enable --now tudor-host-launcher
sudo systemctl restart fprintd

# Enroll fingerprint (swipe multiple times as prompted)
fprintd-enroll

# Verify enrollment
fprintd-verify

Troubleshooting

• "No devices available": * Verify tudor-host-launcher.service is running: systemctl status tudor-host-launcher
  • Restart fprintd: sudo systemctl restart fprintd
  • Check logs: journalctl -u fprintd -u tudor-host-launcher --no-pager -n 50
• "Failed to start Tudor host process": Reinstall synaTudor (sudo ninja -C ~/synaTudor/build uninstall && sudo ninja -C ~/synaTudor/build install), then reboot.
• Sensor not detected (corrupt Windows driver): The build process auto-downloads the Windows driver. If it failed, rebuild: cd ~/synaTudor && rm -rf build && meson setup build && ninja -C build && sudo ninja -C build install
• Slow wake from suspend: The sensor requires 5–20 seconds to reinitialize after wake.

Architecture Breakdown

*(Credits: Popax21 for synaTudor reverse engineering, Marco Trevisan/3v1n0 for libfprint-tod, and nmikhailov for Validity90 community documentation).

Hello everyone 👋🏼,
I have experience using Linux, Windows, and macOS, although I’ve primarily worked with Windows. Recently, I’ve decided to start learning cybersecurity and ethical hacking.
I’m considering installing Kali Linux and setting it up in a dual-boot configuration alongside Windows. However, I’m open to other recommendations if there are better distributions or approaches for beginners.
I’d appreciate guidance on the following:
Is Kali Linux the right choice for someone starting cybersecurity and ethical hacking?
Would you recommend another Linux distribution instead?
Best practices and precautions before setting up a dual-boot system.
A step-by-step guide or useful resources for dual-boot installation.
Common mistakes to avoid during the installation process.
Essential tools and software I should learn first.
A beginner-to-advanced cybersecurity learning roadmap.
Recommended free courses, labs, and practice platforms.
Resources for learning networking, Linux fundamentals, penetration testing, and web security.
Any certifications worth considering after building a solid foundation.
Any advice, learning resources, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 🙌🏼

One day I was just chillin and thought 💡 let me update kali linux. I came back after the update to see that all this Wierd English-but-coruppted text had appeared everywhere and I had to reset my locales. Anybody know why that happens?

Hey r/kalilinux,

I've been working on a side project for the past few weeks – a React Native Android app

that gives you a proper mobile GUI for Kali Linux pentest tools.

**What it does:**

- 130+ tools across 12 categories (Recon, Web, Exploitation, Post-Exploitation,

Wireless, Password Attacks, Sniffing, Forensics, OSINT, Reporting, Reverse Eng…)

- Each tool has a dedicated screen with flag builder – pick your flags,

set the target, hit Run. No memorizing syntax.

- Live terminal with real-time output streaming

- Command history with search

- Tool Library – browse all tools, full descriptions, flag references

- **Custom Tool Scanner** – scans what's actually installed on your Kali box,

lets you install missing packages (apt) and add any tool to the app in 3 steps

(runs `--help`, auto-detects flags, saves to Custom Tools)

- Dark UI, works on any Android 8.0+

**How it connects:**

The app talks to a small Python WebSocket bridge (`kali-bridge.py`) running on your

Kali machine. No cloud, no account, no AI nonsense – just a local bridge over SSH tunnel

or LAN. The bridge executes commands and streams output back.

**Also made a NetHunter variant** (`nethunter-gui`) – same app but adapted for Termux

on Android with NetHunter-specific tools: HID keyboard/mouse attacks, DuckHunter

(Ducky Script payloads), hostapd-wpe rogue AP, Frida/Objection for mobile app analysis,

BTLEJack for BLE hijacking, Wifite2, Bettercap, and the same tool scanner but pointed

at the proot/chroot environment.

**Repo:**

https://github.com/notconnector/kali-mobile-gui

Would love honest feedback – what's missing, what's broken, what would you actually

use day-to-day? Roast it if you have to, I'd rather fix it than not know.

Heyo,
This may be a dumb question, but after following the tutorial on kali org about Pi Tail installation on a Pi Zero 2 W, I'm not able to ssh onto the device.
The hotspot is setup and the device itself does connect to it, but it does not request nor have an ip, so when trying to ssh, it obviously doesn't connect.

(During the attempt both Mobile Data and Wifi were turned off and the hotspod was set to 2.4 GHz with the correct SSID and password)

I may be missing something and any help would be greatly appreciated!