Kali Linux Network PXE Install

Setup a PXE Server

Booting and installing Kali over the network (PXE) can be useful from a single laptop install with no CDROM or USB ports, to enterprise deployments supporting pre-seeding of the Kali installation.

First, we need to install dnsmasq to provide the DHCP/TFTP server and then edit thednsmasq.conf file.

apt-get install dnsmasq
nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf

In dnsmasq.conf, enable DHCP, TFTP and PXE booting and set the dhcp-range to match your environment. If needed you can also define your gateway and DNS servers with the dhcp-option directive as shown below:

interface=eth0
dhcp-range=192.168.101.100,192.168.101.200,12h
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.0
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/tftpboot/
dhcp-option=3,192.168.101.1
dhcp-option=6,8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4

With the edits in place, the dnsmasq service needs to be restarted in order for the changes to take effect.

service dnsmasq restart

Download Kali PXE Netboot Images

Now, we need to create a directory to hold the Kali Netboot image and download the image we wish to serve from the Kali repos.

mkdir -p /tftpboot
cd /tftpboot
# for 64 bit systems:
wget http://repo.kali.org/kali/dists/kali/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz
# for 32 bit systems:
wget http://repo.kali.org/kali/dists/kali/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz
tar zxpf netboot.tar.gz
rm netboot.tar.gz

Configure Target to Boot From Network

With everything configured, you can now boot your target system and configure it to boot from the network. It should get an IP address from your PXE server and begin booting Kali.