The RIoTboard is a Cortex A9 1GHz, with 1GB of RAM. Kali Linux fits on an external microSD card.

By default, the Kali Linux RIoTboard image contains the kali-linux-default metapackage similar to most other platforms. If you wish to install extra tools please refer to our metapackages page.

Kali does not provide pre-built images for download, but you can still generate one by cloning the Kali-ARM Build-Scripts repository on GitLab, and follow the README.md file’s instructions. The script to use is riotboard.sh.

Once the build script finishes running, you will have an “img” file in the directory where you ran the script from. At that point, the instructions are the same as if you had downloaded a pre-built image.

The easiest way to generate these images is from within a pre-existing Kali Linux environment.

To install Kali on your RIoTboard, follow these instructions:

1. Get a fast microSD card with at least 16GB capacity. Class 10 cards are highly recommended.
2. Use the dd utility to image this file to your microSD card (same process as making a Kali USB.

In our example, we assume the storage device is located at /dev/sdX. Do not simply copy these value, change this to the correct drive path.

$ xzcat kali-linux-2024.3-riotboard-armhf.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

This process can take a while, depending on your PC, your microSD card speed, and the size of the Kali Linux image.

Once the dd operation is complete, boot up the RIoTboard with the microSD card plugged in.

You should be able to log in to Kali.