Sunday, 14 June 2015

Managing Kali Linux Services

Kali  Linux  is  a  specialized  Linux  distribution  aimed  at  security  professionals. As  such,  it  contains  several  non-­‐‐standard  features.  The  default  Kali  installation  ships  with  several services  preinstalled,  such  as  SSH,  HTTP,  MySQL,  etc.  If  left  untouched,  these  services  would  load  at  boot  time,  which  would  result  in  Kali  Linux  exposing  several  open  ports  by  default  –  something  we  want  to  avoid,  for  security  reasons.  Kali  deals  with  this  issue  by  updating  our  settings  to  prevent  network  services  from  starting  at  boot  time. 
   
     The following module will discuss some of these services, as well as how to operate and manage them.

Default root Password:- 

         If you installed Kali from an image file, the installation process should  have prompted you for a root password. If you are using the Kali Linux   VMware image, as recommended, the default root password is   "toor".   Make sure to change any default or weak passwords to something long,   complex, and secure before starting any services such as SSH. The root  password can be changed with the passwd command as shown below. 




SSH Service:- 

           The Secure Shell (SSH)3 service is most commonly used to  remotely access a computer, using a secure, encrypted protocol. However, as we will see later on  in the course, the SSH protocol has some surprising and useful features, beyond providing terminal access. The SSH service is TCP-­based and listens by default on port 22. To start the SSH service in Kali, type the following command into a Kali terminal.
       We can verify that the SSH service is running and listening on TCP port 22 by using the netstat command and piping the output into the grep command  to search the output for sshd.



          If, like many users, you want to have the SSH service start automatically at boot time, you need to enable it using the update-­rc.d script as follows. The  update-­rc.d script can be used to enable and disable most services within Kali Linux.



HTTP Service:-

          The HTTP service can come in handy during a penetration test,  either for hosting a site, or providing a platform for downloading files to a victim machine. The  HTTP service is TCP-­based and listens by default on port 80. To start  the HTTP service in Kali, type the following command into a terminal.




             As we did with the SSH service, we can verify that the HTTP  service is running and listening on TCP port 80 by using the netstat and grep commands once again.



             To have the HTTP service start at boot time, much like with  the SSH service, you need to explicitly enable it with update-­rc.d  




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