Install and configure GUI for Kali linux on AWS EC2

Summary

In my previous post, I explained in detail, how to setup Kali Linux on a Hyper-V platform hosted on Windows 11. In this post we will set up Kali Linux on the AWS EC2 platform, and we will also configure a GUI for us to access. The following will be covered.

Spin up an EC2 instance with a Kali linux image from AWS Marketplace.
Once the EC2 instance is available install GUI tools on it.
Change hostname.
Change timezone.
Install MS-Edge browser.
Install Homebrew and Github CLI.
Install VSCode and some common extensions.

[1] Spin up an EC2 instance

Log into you AWS account, and choose a region nearest to you. If you do not have an account you can sign up for one for free using this link.
Go to EC2 service and click on Launch Instances.
In AMI's seach for the keyword Kali and select the image from AWS marketplace as shown in the image below

Accept the aws marketplace subscription dialog box.
Add an instance type.
Select a VPC and the basic networking setup. Add an EBS volume and choose a keypair to associate with you instance.
Make sure to associate a security group with your instance which has inbound ports 3389 and 22 open.
Review and launch the instance.

[2] Install GUI tools via ssh

Once the EC2 instance is available use your key-pair to ssh to it.
Once you are in run the following commands to update your OS. You will get a couple of interactive prompts along the way while your packages are being updated. If you do not understand an of them leave them unchanged.



# See the man page for apt-get to understand each command better.
# https://linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade

Install the GUI tools using the following commands



sudo apt-get install -y kali-desktop-xfce xorgxrdp xrdp
sudo systemctl enable xrdp --now

You can check the xrdp status using the following command, it should be in running state.



┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo service xrdp status

● xrdp.service - xrdp daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2022-01-17 08:52:38 UTC; 5min ago
       Docs: man:xrdp(8)
             man:xrdp.ini(5)
    Process: 66628 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh /usr/share/xrdp/socksetup (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 66636 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/xrdp $XRDP_OPTIONS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 66637 (xrdp)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 9090)
     Memory: 904.0K
        CPU: 10ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/xrdp.service
             └─66637 /usr/sbin/xrdp

Add user for RDP



# See man page for useradd
# https://linux.die.net/man/8/useradd
# Replace <Username> with the user login
sudo useradd -m <UserName>
# Set the user shell for the user <UserName>
# https://linux.die.net/man/1/chsh
sudo chsh -s /bin/zsh <UserName>

Set a new password for your RDP user



┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo passwd sysadmin                                                                                                                 1 ⨯
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully

Add the new user to the sudo group



sudo useradd -a -G sudo <UserName>

Download a RDP client like RDC Man and use your EC2 instance IP address / DNS name as configured for your VPC to access the EC2 instance.

[3] Set hostname

Edit the /etc/hosts file using an editor. Add the hostname as in the image where "hostname" is the name of your choice. Use the same name in the next command also.

Now use the below command to set the hostname using hostnamectl. Use the same name set in /etc/hosts file above.



# Make sure <hostname> used here is same as the one used in /etc/hosts file. Else sudo might break.
sudo hostnamectl hostname <hostname>

You can see the hostname you set using hostnamectl command.



┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo hostnamectl
 Static hostname: ll-kali-02
       Icon name: computer-vm
         Chassis: vm

[4] Set timezone

You can set the timezone using the timedatectl command where "timezone" is the one of your choice.



# See man for timedatectl
# Example used is Asia/Kolkata timezone
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata

Use the timedatectl command to see your timezone.



┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ timedatectl

               Local time: Mon 2022-01-17 15:40:02 IST
           Universal time: Mon 2022-01-17 10:10:02 UTC
                 RTC time: Mon 2022-01-17 10:10:02
                Time zone: Asia/Kolkata (IST, +0530)

[5] Install Microsoft Edge Browser

Use the steps mentioned in this link.



## Installing the stable version
## Setup
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > microsoft.gpg
sudo install -o root -g root -m 644 microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/edge stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-edge-beta.list'
sudo rm microsoft.gpg
## Install
sudo apt update
## Install the stable update
sudo apt install microsoft-edge-stable

[6] Install Homebrew and GitHub CLI

Use the steps mentioned in this link to install homebrew on your OS.



/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
# Once this is installed follow the onscreen instructions to add brew to your current and shell profile.

Install Github CLI



brew install gh

[7] Install Visual Studio Code

Download the .deb file for VsCode from the following link.
Install VsCode using the following command



# Once you download the .deb file from the above link use the following command to install VsCode
sudo apt install ./<file>.deb

[7.1] Install common extensions in VsCode

Use the following code to install some of the common extensions using VsCode CLI.



code --install-extension amazonwebservices.aws-toolkit-vscode --force
code --install-extension christian-kohler.path-intellisense --force
code --install-extension CoenraadS.bracket-pair-colorizer --force
code --install-extension DavidAnson.vscode-markdownlint --force
code --install-extension eamodio.gitlens --force
code --install-extension esbenp.prettier-vscode --force
code --install-extension GitHub.vscode-pull-request-github --force
code --install-extension ms-python.python --force
code --install-extension ms-python.vscode-pylance --force
code --install-extension ms-toolsai.jupyter --force
code --install-extension ms-toolsai.jupyter-keymap --force
code --install-extension ms-toolsai.jupyter-renderers --force
code --install-extension VisualStudioExptTeam.vscodeintellicode --force
code --install-extension zhuangtongfa.material-theme  --force

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