Kali Linux Troubleshooting – Is my issue Kali related, generic issue, or lack of knowledge?

If you are reading this post, I presume you are a security professional or at least wanna be one. If you want to start in security please refer to this post http://blog.dclabs.com.br/2016/05/wanna-be-pentester.html In this post, I will give you some tips to understand if the issue you are facing while running Kali is related to Kali, generic, or lack of knowledge issues. Also, this post is based on statistics from the Kali IRC channel. More than 75% of the questions asked on the channel are not Kali related.


First of all, you must understand the Kali support policy:

“While Kali Linux is a Penetration Testing Linux distribution, we do not provide penetration testing support, or even tool usage support, as some might expect. We limit our support to Kali Linux operating system and packaging issues and encourage users to search for answers to their penetration testing related issues in better suited support channels.”
Source: https://www.kali.org/community/

To be clear from the beginning: Just because you are running Kali, it does not mean your issues are Kali related. The people are on the channel to help you for free. So, don't be an idiot.

As you can notice if you don’t know how to use some tool, its not a Kali issue. Check the tool documentation. If you are too lazy to read it, jump off the boat right now. To be a good security professional there are no shortcuts. Get your ass on the chair and read!

As you should know, Kali is based on Debian testing(and maybe some packages may be imported from Debian Unstable and/or Debian Experimental). In this case, it is a good idea to keep a Debian testing machine installed on your VMware/Vbox. The main reason for keeping it is: If the issues are reproducible in Debian testing, it's clear, it's not Kali specific issue.

Following some examples of questions to clear your mind before asking for help on official Kali channels:

"I'm new on Kali, how to..."

It does not matter if you are new to Kali. The only thing that matters is if you are familiar with Linux itself or not. If not: https://kali.training

"I'm trying to install libpXYX:i386, but I get unable to locate the package. The libpXYZ seems to already be installed. How can I install the 32-bit version?"

As you can see, it's a lack of knowledge using dpkg and apt commands. Googling the string apt add i386 architecture, the first result will give a step-by-step how to fix it. So, IT'S NOT A KALI ISSUE.

"Hello, I would like to analyze the incoming RDP connection on my server. How should I do?"

It's more than clear that this question should be asked in some network forum/channel and not in the Kali channel. Kali has nothing to deal with your incoming connections. So, IT'S NOT A KALI ISSUE.

"Hi, when I run arachni it hangs before start scanning and shows some library errors. I have tested in other distros like Ubuntu, Debian and it works fine."
This case seems to be a Kali issue since it happens ONLY in Kali!

"What is the Nmap command to enumerate shared folders?"

As explained at the beginning of the post, "...we do not provide penetration testing support, or even tool usage support..." So, IT'S NOT A KALI ISSUE.

"Is my wifi card Alfa Xyz123 supported by Kali?"

As explained before, Kali is based on Debian testing. You must check if Debian supports it.
If somehow, your driver works in Debian and not in Kali, then you have a Kali issue, otherwise, IT'S NOT A KALI ISSUE.

"The copy and paste is not working in Kali running in Virtualbox"

Is it not working only for Kali or to all other VM's also?

"When I execute the Metasploit against the target the shell does not open.",
How to create a user, how to change password, how to change to the text terminal, how to execute the tool, how to install..., how to remove..., how to update, the av is blocking...

All these above questions are not relevant to be asked on the Kali official channel since they are generic Linux questions. Kali indeed has all the setup and security tools, but in the end, it's a just Linux based on Debian.

If you know how to use Linux properly, these questions will disappear from your mind.

The best way to ask:
But, before asking, make sure you have googled it and spent a good amount of time researching for the solution or answer you are looking for.

After that, provide detailed information, like steps to reproduce the issue, errors, logs (use Pastebin for it), kernel version, tool version and etc.

I guess you know how to proceed from here. (: