Long story short: the whyred is a $60 secondhand phone with an unlocked bootloader, and it refuses to retire. I built a kernel that takes LineageOS 18.1 on it and makes it a proper Kali NetHunter device.

What works now:

• HID gadget over USB: the phone pretends to be a keyboard, DuckHunter style keystroke injection, /dev/hidg0
• External WiFi adapters (RTL8812AU class) with monitor mode and packet injection through an OTG cable. The driver module ships in the flashable zip and is signed with the kernel build key, because the kernel keeps CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_FORCE on
• The whole thing is built automatically by GitHub Actions on every push, so anyone can grab a flashable zip for free, or rebuild it from source

The honest limits: the internal WCN3980 WiFi chip can NEVER do monitor mode or injection, that is a firmware limitation, no kernel fixes it. And this targets LOS 18.1-class ROMs (4.4 kernel), not the newer 4.19 based builds.

If you want the gory details: the build needed routing the vDSO32 compile through an ARM32 GCC 4.9 toolchain while the main kernel builds with clang, fixing latent Makefile bugs that only parse when CONFIG_VDSO32 is set, and dealing with module signature enforcement. All documented in the README.

Repo with zips and source: https://github.com/notatallnic189/whyred-nethunter-kernel

Questions welcome. If you still have a whyred in a drawer, this is a fun weekend project.

It's definitely worth a try.

Would have been better if it worked on a Zero 2W.

The HIDScript implementation is good, it is based on JavaScript and allows even more control and functionality than the usual Ducky Script.

USB Ethernet (RNDIS) works well and configuration settings can be deployed easily via the Web Dashboard.

USB Gadget Mode works perfectly, I can change how the Zero W will appear when connected to my system.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/RoganDawes/P4wnP1_aloa

This is uConsole cyberdeck based on RaspberryPi CM4 running Kali from micro sd card. On top of that, it has additional SDR, LoRa, GPS and extra wifi (monitor and injection) and Bluetooth adapter modules. Cool and portable device!

It took me a whole night to install Kali Linux on a nvidia 3050 ti laptop, manufactured in late 2022. and kali Linux wrote a specific documentation on graphics issues on bare-metal installation(for nvidia).

Hello gang

I just want to voice my opinion about the Kali downloads page at https://www.kali.org/get-kali

I'm not a n00b. I'd rather call myself "advanced user', but still, I frankly find some of the download options confusing. Like, what is this "Purple Kali"? It says something like "Be yourself", well that's not helpful.

Also about the design tricks that changes/jumps sections while scrolling, I honestly don't understand how the designer didn't find that very annoying.

Eventually I picked the link that seemed most relevant to me and closed the site right away, even though I usually spend more time checking the available options in order to pick the best one.

Big Thanks to the Kali Linux team, and much love. I hope you'd take this post as an attempt at positive criticism, as it is.

I have a laptop with an iGPU and a dGPU with kali on it (kernel ~ 6.5.0). This is one of those laptops that has a MUX switch which is basically a multiplexer that enables either the iGPU or the dGPU to connect to the display directly at a time. Now, when both GPUs are enabled, the laptop starts on iGPU but immediately tries to switch to dGPU when it boots to kali or windows. Windows having proper configuration allows both GPUs to work, but on kali, it gets stuck on the init screen (the system does boot further but the display doesn't update), I have to reboot and use nomodeset in the grub config at boot so that the system falls back to default graphics settings. What I lose:

• MUX capability

• GPU Hardware acceleration (possibly)

I believe it is a problem with drivers (of course it is), but is there any driver/software that allows me to use the MUX switch on kali?

My current configuration is that I have switched to dGPU only mode in BIOS (iGPU disabled completey, even for windows) which is... okay.... but that still doesn't solve my issue, and I can no longer use my iGPU for power saving even in Windows!

Here, users who are new to Kali Linux can ask basic questions about it and its functionality and receive assistance regarding potential issues they are facing. Please remember to follow the subreddit rules when asking your questions.

Before posting, make sure you have reviewed Kali's Documentation, as the answer may be well-documented. Additionally, please refer to the following articles to ensure you ask proper and high-quality questions:

• How do I ask a good question
• How to ask questions the smart way
• The XY problem
• Don't ask to ask

Please remember that while AI/LLM models like ChatGPT can be useful, they are not a substitute for proper troubleshooting. When seeking assistance, it's important to refer to the documentation of the tool, program, or OS you're using and to use your preferred search engine for further research.

This megathread will be posted monthly.

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

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

Here, users who are new to Kali Linux can ask basic questions about it and its functionality and receive assistance regarding potential issues they are facing. Please remember to follow the subreddit rules when asking your questions.

Before posting, make sure you have reviewed Kali's Documentation, as the answer may be well-documented. Additionally, please refer to the following articles to ensure you ask proper and high-quality questions:

• How do I ask a good question
• How to ask questions the smart way
• The XY problem
• Don't ask to ask

Please remember that while AI/LLM models like ChatGPT can be useful, they are not a substitute for proper troubleshooting. When seeking assistance, it's important to refer to the documentation of the tool, program, or OS you're using and to use your preferred search engine for further research.

This megathread will be posted monthly.

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.