Installing additional tools in Kali Linux

Prior to or during a penetration test, it may be necessary to include other tools that are not commonly available with Kali Linux. The art of penetration testing has a great many individuals constantly creating tools that you can include. As a result, it may be necessary to install these tools in your Kali Linux setup. In other circumstances, it is generally a good idea to ensure that your tools are up to date prior to starting any penetration test.

When including additional penetration testing tools, it is advised to look within the Kali Linux repository first. If the package is available there, you can use the package and install it using the commands detailed next. Another option, if the tool is not available from the repository, is that the creator will often have a download option either on their website or through the software sharing and aggregation site https://github.com/.

While there are a number of tools available outside the Kali Linux repository, you should not rely on those as it is easy to add them to your Kali Linux installation. Also, many of the packages that are not in the repository have dependencies on other software and may cause stability issues.

There are several package management tools that can be used to help you manage the software package in your system, such as dpkg, apt, and aptitude. Kali Linux comes with dpkg and apt installed by default.

In this section, we will briefly discuss the apt command in a practical way that is related to the software package installation process.

To search for a package name in the repository, you can use the following command:

    apt-cache search <package_name>

This command will display the entire software package that has the name package_name. To search for a specific package, use the following command:

    apt-cache search <package_name>

If you have located the package but want more detailed information, use the following command:

    apt-cache show <package_name>

To install a new package or to update an existing package, use the apt-get command. The following is the command:

    apt-get install <package_name>

If the package is not available in the repository, you can search for and download it from the developer's site or through www.github.com. Be sure to only include software from trusted sources. For developers who require a Debian package format (the package will have the file extension .deb), you can utilize the dpkg command. For other packages, you will often find that they are compressed using a compression program such as 7-Zip and will often have the extension .zip or .tar.