What is Kali Linux ?
Kali Linux is an advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing Linux distribution.
Kali Linux Features
Kali is a complete re-build of BackTrack Linux, adhering completely to Debian development standards. All-newinfrastructure has been put in place, all tools were reviewed and packaged, and we use Git for our VCS.
More than 300 penetration testing tools: After reviewing every tool that was included in BackTrack,
we eliminated a great number of tools that either did not work or had other tools available that provided
similar functionality.
Free and always will be: Kali Linux, like its predecessor, is completely free and always will be. You will
never, ever have to pay for Kali Linux.
Open source Git tree: We are huge proponents of open source software and our development tree is
available for all to see and all sources are available for those who wish to tweak and rebuild packages.
FHS compliant: Kali has been developed to adhere to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, allowing all
Linux users to easily locate binaries, support files, libraries, etc.
Vast wireless device support: We have built Kali Linux to support as many wireless devices as we
possibly can, allowing it to run properly on a wide variety of hardware and making it compatible with
numerous USB and other wireless devices.
Custom kernel patched for injection: As penetration testers, the development team often needs to
do wireless assessments so our kernel has the latest injection patches included.
Secure development environment: The Kali Linux team is made up of a small group of trusted
individuals who can only commit packages and interact with the repositories while using multiple secure
protocols.
GPG signed packages and repos: All Kali packages are signed by each individual developer when
they are built and committed and the repositories subsequently sign the packages as well.
Multi-language: Although pentesting tools tend to be written in English, we have ensured that Kali has
true multilingual support, allowing more users to operate in their native language and locate the tools
they need for the job.
Completely customizable: We completely understand that not everyone will agree with our design
decisions so we have made it as easy as possible for our more adventurous users to customize Kali Linux
to their liking, all the way down to the kernel.
ARMEL and ARMHF support: Since ARM-based systms are becoming more and more prevalent and
inexpensive, we knew that Kali’s ARM support would need to be as robust as we could manage, resulting
in working installations for both ARMEL and ARMHF systems. Kali Linux has ARM repositories integrated
with the mainline distribution so tools for ARM will be updated in conjunction with the rest of the
distribution. Kali is currently available for the following ARM devices:
rk3306 mk/ss808
Raspberry Pi
ODROID U2/X2
Samsung Chromebook
Kali is specifically tailored to penetration testing and therefore, all documentation on this site assumes prior
knowledge of the Linux operating system.