The following document describes our own method of creating a custom Kali Linux Raspberry Pi ARM image and is targeted at developers. If you would like to install a pre-made Kali image, check out our Install Kali on Raspberry Pi article.

Build a Kali rootfs as described in our Kali documentation, using an armel architecture. By the end of this process, you should have a populated rootfs directory in ~/arm-stuff/rootfs/kali-armel.

Next, we create the physical image file, which will hold our Raspberry Pi rootfs and boot images:

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt install -y kpartx xz-utils sharutils
[email protected]:~$ mkdir -p ~/arm-stuff/images/
[email protected]:~$ cd ~/arm-stuff/images/
[email protected]:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=kali-custom-rpi.img conv=fsync bs=4M count=7000

[email protected]:~$ parted kali-custom-rpi.img --script -- mklabel msdos
[email protected]:~$ parted kali-custom-rpi.img --script -- mkpart primary fat32 0 64
[email protected]:~$ parted kali-custom-rpi.img --script -- mkpart primary ext4 64 -1

[email protected]:~$ loopdevice=`losetup -f --show kali-custom-rpi.img`
[email protected]:~$ device=`kpartx -va $loopdevice | sed -E 's/.*(loop[0-9])p.*/\1/g' | head -1`
[email protected]:~$ device="/dev/mapper/${device}"
[email protected]:~$ bootp=${device}p1
[email protected]:~$ rootp=${device}p2
[email protected]:~$
[email protected]:~$ mkfs.vfat $bootp
[email protected]:~$ mkfs.ext4 $rootp
[email protected]:~$ mkdir -p root
[email protected]:~$ mkdir -p boot
[email protected]:~$ mount $rootp root
[email protected]:~$ mount $bootp boot

[email protected]:~$ rsync -HPavz /root/arm-stuff/rootfs/kali-armel/ root
[email protected]:~$ echo nameserver 8.8.8.8 > root/etc/resolv.conf

If you’re not using ARM hardware as the development environment, you will need to set up an ARM cross-compilation environment to build an ARM kernel and modules. Once that’s done, proceed with the following instructions:

[email protected]:~$ mkdir -p ~/arm-stuff/kernel/
[email protected]:~$ cd ~/arm-stuff/kernel/
[email protected]:~$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/tools.git
[email protected]:~$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git raspberrypi
[email protected]:~$ cd raspberrypi/
[email protected]:~$ touch .scmversion
[email protected]:~$ export ARCH=arm
[email protected]:~$ export CROSS_COMPILE=~/arm-stuff/kernel/toolchains/arm-eabi-linaro-4.6.2/bin/arm-eabi-
[email protected]:~$ make bcmrpi_cutdown_defconfig

[email protected]:~$ # configure your kernel !
[email protected]:~$ make menuconfig
[email protected]:~$ make -j$(cat /proc/cpuinfo|grep processor | wc -l)
[email protected]:~$ make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=~/arm-stuff/images/root
[email protected]:~$ cd ../tools/mkimage/
[email protected]:~$ python imagetool-uncompressed.py ../../raspberrypi/arch/arm/boot/Image

[email protected]:~$ cd ~/arm-stuff/images/
[email protected]:~$ git clone git://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware.git rpi-firmware
[email protected]:~$ cp -rf rpi-firmware/boot/* boot/
[email protected]:~$ rm -rf rpi-firmware
[email protected]:~$
[email protected]:~$ cp ~/arm-stuff/kernel/tools/mkimage/kernel.img boot/
[email protected]:~$ echo "dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 kgdboc=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 rootwait" > boot/cmdline.txt

[email protected]:~$ umount $rootp
[email protected]:~$ umount $bootp
[email protected]:~$ kpartx -dv $loopdevice
[email protected]:~$ losetup -d $loopdevice

Use the dd command to image this file to your SD card. In our example, we assume the storage device is located at /dev/sdb. Change this as needed:

[email protected]:~$ dd if=kali-linux-rpi.img of=/dev/sdb conv=fsync bs=4M

Once the dd operation is complete, unmount and eject the SD card and boot your Pi into Kali Linux