1. Download and copy this latest kali rpi image to the VM and cd into the directory with it
2. Confirm the file is in your current directory

   
    $ ls kali-linux-2025.1a-raspberry-pi-arm64.img.xz
    

3. (Optional step, as you can dd the compressed image later) Extract the image $ unxz kali-linux-2025.1a-raspberry-pi-arm64.img.xz
4. Verify it extracted

   
    $ ls kali-linux-2025.1a-raspberry-pi-arm64.img
    

5. Plug in your sd-card into the USB reader and attach it to the VM
6. Identify the block device for your sd-card (SIZE should be close to your SD card size, my sd-card is 64GB and was /dev/sdc)

   
    $ lsblk -p
    NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
    /dev/sda      8:0    0    50G  0 disk 
    ├─/dev/sda1   8:1    0    42G  0 part /
    ├─/dev/sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part 
    └─/dev/sda5   8:5    0     8G  0 part [SWAP]
    /dev/sdc      8:32   1  59.5G  0 disk 
    ├─/dev/sdc1   8:33   1 122.1M  0 part 
    └─/dev/sdc2   8:34   1  58.6G  0 part 
    /dev/sdd      8:48   1  57.8G  0 disk 
    └─/dev/sdd1   8:49   1  57.8G  0 part /media/kali/TRAVELER1
    /dev/sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
    

7. Don't worry if there are existing logical partitions on your device, you will clear them in the next command
8. Write the image to the sd-card using dd (have the block size be at least half of the max speed!)

   
    $ sudo dd if=kali-linux-2025.1a-raspberry-pi-arm64.img of=/dev/sdc status=progress bs=16M && sync
    

   • If the image is compressed via xz, then use something like:

     
       $ xzcat ~/Downloads/kali-linux-2025.1a-raspberry-pi-arm64.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdd status=progress bs=32M && sync
       14544302592 bytes (15 GB, 14 GiB) copied, 4465 s, 3.3 MB/s 
       28408832+0 records in
       28408832+0 records out
       14545321984 bytes (15 GB, 14 GiB) copied, 4467.03 s, 3.3 MB/s
       

9. Mount the first logical partition to edit cmdline.txt and config.txt $ sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt
10. Edit /mnt/cmdline.txt and make sure the following are present console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty1 fsck.repair=yes
11. Edit /mnt/config.txt and make sure the following line is present enable_uart=1
12. Unmount the first logical partition $ sudo umount /mnt
13. Eject the sd-card before you remove it $ sudo eject /dev/sdc
14. Attach the FTDI-USB-Serial cable to your RPI4's UART0 and attach the USB to your PC (see https://github.com/jhu-information-security-institute/NwSec/wiki/RPI4B for wiring); attach the device to your VM and it should be /dev/ttyUSB0
15. Open minicom on /dev/ttyUSB0; Settings should be 115200,8N1,No,No $ sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0

1. Insert the sd-card into the RPI4
2. Power on the RPI4
3. First boot could be slower if the sd card is large and needs to be resized
4. Wait for the RPI4 to boot and login with kali, kali, source
5. Setup networking (see the section below)
6. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change from kali-rolling to kali-last-snapshot
7. Run an update sequence

   
    $ sudo apt-get update
    

8. Get the ip address of your rpi $ ifconfig
9. openssh-server should be already installed, and you can SSH into the RPI4 by using its ip address, e.g., $ ssh root@ipaddressofpihere
10. login using a KVM and disable Screensaver and Lock Screen from the Screensaver Preferences
11. Disable Display power management in Power Manager
12. install terminator $ sudo apt-get install -y terminator

E.g., for a home wifi network or when using a wireless hotspot from your smartphone

1. Generate a skeleton wpa_supplicant.conf for your SSID and WPA2 pre-shared key (PSK) $ wpa_passphrase ssidhere pskhere > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
2. Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and add lines for ctrl_interface, update_config, country, key_mgmt, proto, pairwise, and group; it should look similar to the following

   
    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1
    country=US
    
    network={
        ssid="ssidhere"
        #psk="pskhere"
        psk=FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF		
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    }
    

3. Update /etc/network/interfaces by adding these lines

   
    auto wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    

4. Create a nwsetup.sh script with the following lines

   
    pkill dhclient
    pkill wpa_supplicant
    wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
    ip link set dev wlan0 down
    ip link set dev wlan0 up
    dhclient -v wlan0
    

5. Make nwsetup.sh executable $ chmod +x nwsetup.sh
6. Run it $ ./nwsetup.sh

1. Instructions are identical to above PSK authentication above, but have a different wpa_supplicant.conf (as described next)
2. Create /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf similar to the following (replace cooluser and supersecret with your MSSI-LAB credentials)

   
    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1
    country=US
    
    network={
        ssid="MSSI-LAB"
        identity="cooluser"
        password="supersecret"
        key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
        eap=PEAP
        phase1="peapver=0"
        phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
    }
    

1. Install the dependencies # apt-get install openssh-server
2. Start the sshd service # systemctl start ssh.socket Once you have sshd up, identify the ip address for your RPI4B and exit out of minicom. Then, ssh in to the RPI4B (as this is better than using minicom). Also, once sshd is up, you can use scp to copy files back and forth between your VM and the RPI4B. E.g., $ scp [email protected]:~/hello . or $ scp hello [email protected]:~/.
3. To copy your keys over, use: $ ssh-copy-id -i path_to_id_rsa.pub username@ipaddress_of_rpi

1. Install the dependencies # apt-get install tightvncserver
2. Create .vnc/xstartup with the following contents:

   
    #!/bin/sh
    set -xv
    
    xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
    xsetroot -solid grey
    # Fix to make GNOME work
    export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
    /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/startxfce4
    vncconfig -iconic &
    

3. Start it using vncserver (on first run it will ask you to set the password)
4. Connect to the server using a vncclient running on your Kali VM (need your ip address of the RPI4B and port should be 5901)
5. List open vnc sessions using ps -ef | grep vnc
6. Kill vncserver using vncserver -kill:<DISPLAY#>

• Image downloads
• Kali documentation