BlackArch has an impressive 2,200+ tools indexed on its website. Kali, currently has about 365 tools. It's fair to say BlackArch provides a more significant collection of software for curious penetration testers to experiment with.
This article will be a quick guide for anyone who wants to weaponize their user-friendly Arch distribution like Arch, Arco or Archlabs,... by adding some penetration testing applications to their operating system. This will be an excellent experience for experiment with BlackArch tools. In another way, it also helps beginners who want to use BlackArch on a Desktop Environment with nice-looking and easier to use.
BlackArch Linux is compatible with existing/normal Arch installations. It acts as an unofficial user repository. Below you will find instructions on how to install BlackArch in this manner.
First, make sure you have an Arch VM, boot it and following below.
BlackArch provides a handy installer script designed for manually importing BlackArch tool repositories, download the strap.sh:
curl -O https://blackarch.org/strap.sh
Give the strap.sh script permissions to run: chmod +x strap.sh
Run the strap.sh installer script: sudo ./strap.sh
sudo pacman -Syu
Installing every single tool may take an incredibly long time to download. All of the tools can be installed individually or in bulk by category.
To see the blackarch categories, run: sudo pacman -Sg | grep blackarch
To install a category of tools, run: sudo pacman -S blackarch-<category>
To install all of the tools, run: sudo pacman -S blackarch
To install all of the tools, run: sudo pacman -S blackarch
All of the tools take about 30GB or greater so make sure that your disk space ready for it.
You also can install BlackArch tools in the Debian or Ubuntu distributions. It just differences in commands, e.g:
Installing packages:
apt-get install <package name>
pacman -S <package name>
Removing packages:
apt-get remove <package name>
pacman -Rs <package name>
Searching repositories:
apt-cache search <package name>
pacman -Ss <package name>
Upgrading the system:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
pacman -Syu
Removing old and unneeded dependencies:
apt-get autoremove
pacman -Qdtq
Displaying package information:
apt-cache show <package name>
pacman -Si <package name>
Which distribution is right for me?
The debate of which penetration distribution is the best may never be settled. The truth is, there probably isn't a single perfect distribution capable of satisfying the individual needs of every security researcher out there. We all have different standards, preferences, areas of expertise, and varying degrees of experience.
Thanks BlackArch, Null-Byte
