Kali includes a huge number of tools (some pre-installed, others in the repos) that aren't available via the package manager for most distros. Also things like wifi drivers that are patched to support monitor mode and default login as root, which is insecure for day-to-day computing but since most of the tools require root access, it's quite nice on Kali.
I believe every network protocol and outside connection is disabled by default. It's supposed to be setup so that it can be booted invisibly, on an existing system via live USB so that you can simulate a real intrusion.
It comes with the most popular tools for penetration testing.
Personally, I try to steer people away from it until they've learned how to do things the hard way (i.e. you have Python and Bash installed, write your own simple tools and hack this network) and then Kali is easy mode.
Kali is a pretty poor distro.
Merely a fork of debian for no other purpose than to create clickable icons/menu items for cli applications that require sudo. So 99% of the security apps they install are presented in an unusable form. Nothing you can't do with debian and a few runs of apt-get.
The point is that none of the menu items are worth anything as they spawn an xterm, which emits an error about requiring sudo, then exits. Having a metric ton list of installed tools that are displayed and are not usable seems pretty daft.
It's been a while since I used Kali so this might have changed, but the distro provides pentest-focused default configs and patchsets that can be a pain to set up yourself. Configuring your own systems can also leave behind revealing information that will allow others to trace your activities.
Kali is designed to allow you to quickly set up throwaway systems for particular projects. It's far from perfect, but represents a better starting point than a general-purpose distro.
Running as root in a lot of ways is to further nail home that this is a tool that is not for your day to day computer usage. You'll pull it out for testing, use it, and then toss the environment. With the environment as disposable as it is, running as a regular user gains you nothing, except a potential case of carpal tunnel from typing sudo over and over again.
wireshark as root? Honestly? I've got thousands of lines in there, and I'd not trust it. And this is no longer a "live cd" as you claim it as. Installation is installation. You'll use it for more than a one time usage btw.
> At the request of Rapid7, we have removed the Metasploit Community / Pro package from Kali Linux and now host the open-source metasploit-framework package only...
> In addition, the Rapid7 team no longer maintains the Metasploit package in Kali...
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadThey've added a ton of stuff as well as removed metasploit pro package due to Rapid7 asking them to remove it.
Deployed as a live USB, it becomes the Swiss Army knife of pentesters.
Personally, I try to steer people away from it until they've learned how to do things the hard way (i.e. you have Python and Bash installed, write your own simple tools and hack this network) and then Kali is easy mode.
EDIT found the link on reddit: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:66fc47bf95d1aa5eca358f12c70af3ba5c7e8f9a&tr=udp://tracker.kali.org:6969/announce&tr=http://tracker.kali.org:6969/announce (torrent at http://images.kali.org/kali-linux-2.0-amd64.torrent)
Kali is designed to allow you to quickly set up throwaway systems for particular projects. It's far from perfect, but represents a better starting point than a general-purpose distro.
Also, most of the people Kali is targeted towards would use it every day.
Kali Linux is the successor of Backtrack but on Debian.
Interesting, they should have kept the brand sheesh.
> In addition, the Rapid7 team no longer maintains the Metasploit package in Kali...
Seems they had a problem with metasploit company.
I've downloaded twice and I'm getting a34527e9178e7185eebbca0730d825a7c78fcca4
Kali's website (and sha1 file) says aaeb89a78f155377282f81a785aa1b38ee5f8ba0
I'm getting from http now, but its slow as sin.