This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install and run Kali Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2).
Back in 2017, Windows released Windows Subsystem for Linux that lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment, including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications directly in Windows without setting up a virtual machine or dual-boot.
WSL2 has since been released, and it’s an improvement over version 1. The new and improved version comes with performance boost, full system call compatibility, and built with a new architecture and that delivers features that make WSL an amazing way to run a Linux environment in Windows.
To install WSL 2 on Windows 10, these two requirements must be met:
- Windows 10 May 2020 (2004), Windows 10 May 2019 (1903), or Windows 10 November 2019 (1909) or later
- A computer with Hyper-V Virtualization support
Since you can now install Linux systems, including Kali Linux directly in Windows, let’s go ahead and install Kali Linux. Before you can do that, you must first enable WSL or WSL2 in Windows.
When you’re ready to enable WSL 2 on Windows 10, follow the steps below:
Enable WSL in Windows
To enable WSL in Windows, you will want to open PowerShell terminal as administrator. Click on Start then begin typing PowerShell.
Next, right-click Windows PowerShell app and choose to run as administrator.
When the console opens, run the commands below:
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
After installing, you should get a success message similar to the lines below:
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool Version: 10.0.19041.844 Image Version: 10.0.19042.844 Enabling feature(s) [==========================100.0%==========================] The operation completed successfully.
Enable Virtual Machine Platform
WSL 2 requires Windows 10 Virtual Machine Platform to be enabled. This is not Hyper-V. To enable the VM platform feature in Windows, run the commands below from the same PowerShell administrator’s console.
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart
If you’re using Windows 10 version lower than 2004, then use the commands below:
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform -NoRestart
When you’re done running the commands above, restart your computer for all the configuration changes to apply. If you don’t restart, the below command might not be recognized.
After restarting your computer, login back in and launch PowerShell as administrator. Then run the commands below to configure WSL 2 as the default version of WSL.
wsl --set-default-version 2
If you get an error about not having Linux kernel installed, get it from the link below and run it in Windows, then try the command above again.
Install Kali Linux in Windows 10
Now that WSL 2 is installed and ready to be used, open the link below to download and install a copy of Kali Linux from Windows store.
Get Kali Linux – Microsoft Store
Kali Linux on Windows allows you to use Kali Linux Terminal and run Kali Linux command line utilities including bash, ssh, git, apt and many more.
Click the Get button and install. After installing Kali Linux, you’ll want the option to launch Kali Linux from Windows WSL environment.
After downloading and installing, you will get a Launch button.
After launching Kali Linux, it should install and prompt to create your account.
Installing, this may take a few minutes… Please create a default UNIX user account. The username does not need to match your Windows username. For more information visit: Enter new UNIX username: richard New password: Retype new password: passwd: password updated successfully Installation successful! ┏━(Message from Kali developers) ┃ ┃ This is a minimal installation of Kali Linux, you likely ┃ want to install supplementary tools. Learn how: ┃ ⇒ ┃ ┗━(Run: “touch ~/.hushlogin” to hide this message) ┌──(richard㉿DESKTOP-M1235UB)-[~] └─$
That should do it!
Some troubleshooting commands to run when you run into issues.
wsl --set-default-version 1 bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto start
Now simply launch Kali Linux from Windows start by searching for it. You can also pin it to the taskbar and always have it launch from there.
That should do it!
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to install WSL 2 on Windows 10 and install Kali Linux. If you find any error above please use the comment form below to report.
