Kali linux rolling update

Kali linux rolling update

A branch is an alternative version of some software, in this case of the Kali OS. Kali Linux has multiple branches which allows for users to decide how up-to-date their packages will be. Kali Linux is similar to Debian in many regards, one of which is the use of branches.

You may have multiple branches enabled at once. However, switching branches may introduce problems, as packages may be at different versions, and unavailable or unstable in certain cases.

Please see the network sources page for how to switch branches. For an example of how to use multiple branches, please see our NVIDIA GPU Drivers guide.

Kali Branches

First are the main branches, which are the most frequently used, and the most stable. These are often seen as “safe”.

• kali-rolling is the main default branch that most should be using. It is being continuously updated, as it pulls from kali-dev after ensuring questionable packages are stable and combining them with packages from kali-rolling-only . From time to time, a package bug may slip into here, due to bugs in debian-testing .
• kali-last-snapshot is a branch of Kali that can be used if users want a more standard feeling of software control. For every new release, we freeze the code and merge kali-rolling into kali-last-snapshot , at which point users will get all of the updates between versioned releases (i.e. 2020.3 -> 2020.4). This often is more stable, as packages are not updated (until the next release as it’s a “Point Release”) and go thought our release testing. This is the “safest” option.

Each of these branches provide a complete distribution of the Kali OS. You should be using either one or the other, but there’s no point having both enabled at the same time.

Next are the partial branches, which are meant to be used in addition to the the kali-rolling branch. They usually provide more recent versions of the packages that are found in kali-rolling, and at time they might even provide additional packages. These branches can’t be used alone, as they don’t contain a complete distribution of Kali.

Note that the casual user will likely not need those branches, except in very special cases. The partial branches are:

• kali-experimental is a staging area for work-in-progress packages.
• kali-bleeding-edge contains packages that are automatically updated from the upstream git repositories. This branch has the potential to be very unstable.

Development

• kali-dev is the development version of Kali Linux. It is created by combining three other branches: kali-dev-only , kali-debian-picks and debian-testing . Its mainly used for merging Debian’s updates with the changes maintained by Kali Linux.
• kali-dev-only is the development distribution with Kali-specific packages. This branch is auto-merged into kali-dev .
• kali-rolling-only is a repository for packages that need to quickly reach kali-rolling .

Branches Used to Assist With Other Branches

• kali-debian-picks contains packages cherry-picked from debian-experimental and debian-unstable . It is auto-merged into kali-dev .
• debian-testing is a mirror of Debian’s testing distribution. This is used to build kali-dev .
• debian-experimental and debian-unstable are partial mirrors for specific packages that we want to cherry-pick.

Mapping

Below is a diagram showing the relationship between the branches:

 debian-unstable -> debian-testing -> kali-dev -> kali-rolling -> kali-last-snapshot | | ^ ^ ^ | v v | | | | ---------------------------------> kali-debian-picks -| | | ----> kali-bleeding-edge | | ^ kali-experimental -> kali-dev-only -----------------------------| | | | Upstream kali-rolling-only --------------------------------------------------------| 

Debian’s Relation

Stable is the “safe” Debian branch. Around every two months, it is updated with a “Point Release”, which is often just security updates. Packages don’t generally get a version upgrade during this time, due to potential incompatibility and thus instability. This is the Debian equivalent of kali-last-snapshot.

Testing is the closest thing there is to a Debian “rolling” distribution, where “rolling” means that as soon as a package update is available, it’s pushed out. Kali has used this branch as a starter for kali-rolling since January 2016.

Unstable is just after Debian’s package development happens. The packages have been created, but not fully tested. Kali doesn’t have an equivalent, as it is a rolling distribution.

For more information about how Kali relates to Debian, please see our policy page on the matter.

The kali-rolling Repository

Contrary to kali-dev, kali-rolling is expected to be of better quality because it’s managed by a tool that ensures installability of all the package it contains. That tool picks updated packages from kali-dev and copies them to kali-rolling only when they have been verified to be installable. Note however that those checks do not include any functional testing. It might still contain broken software due to other problems that are not covered by the package dependencies. Kali Rolling is the primary repository that most users should be using. They can also report any issue they have with Kali specific packages on bugs.kali.org. Make sure to select the “kali-dev” version in “Product version”.

Kali Rolling users are expected to have the following entry in their /etc/apt/sources.list:

The kali-dev Repository

WARNING: While kali-dev is publicly accessible to everybody on all Kali mirrors, this distribution should not be used by end-users as it will regularly break.

This repository is actually Debian’s Testing distribution with all the kali-specific packages (available in the kali-dev-only repository) force-injected. Kali packages take precedence over the Debian packages. Sometimes when Testing changes, some Kali packages must be updated and this will not happen immediately. During this time, kali-dev is likely to be broken. This repository is where Kali developers push updated packages and is the basis used to create kali-rolling.

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How to Update Kali Linux Packages

Kali Linux is a rolling-release Linux distribution. The term “rolling release” means that the software packages of Kali Linux are kept as updated as possible. To get the most updated software packages on Kali Linux, you need to update Kali Linux more frequently than the Linux distributions like Ubuntu/Debian or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

In this article, we will show you how to update the Kali Linux packages to the latest version.

Topic of Contents:

Opening a Terminal Program in Kali Linux

To open a Terminal app in Kali Linux, click on the Terminal icon from the top-left menu bar of Kali Linux as marked in the following screenshot:

A Terminal app should be opened.

Updating the Kali Linux Package Repository Cache

To update the Kali Linux package repository cache, run the following command:

The Kali Linux package repository cache should be updated.

Updating the Kali Linux Packages

To update all the Kali Linux packages to the latest version, run the following command:

To confirm the update, press Y and then press .

The updates are being downloaded from the internet. This takes a while to complete.

The updates are being installed on Kali Linux. It takes a while to complete.

Kali Linux should be updated.

Restarting the Kali Linux Machine

For the changes to take effect, restart your Kali Linux machine with the following command:

Conclusion

We showed you how to update Kali Linux to the latest version. Since Kali Linux is a rolling-release distro, you should keep your Kali Linux updated to get the latest software versions and security patches.

About the author

Shahriar Shovon

Freelancer & Linux System Administrator. Also loves Web API development with Node.js and JavaScript. I was born in Bangladesh. I am currently studying Electronics and Communication Engineering at Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), one of the demanding public engineering universities of Bangladesh.

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Kali linux rolling update

We release fresh images of Kali Linux every few months as a result of accumulative fixes, major security updates, installer updates, etc.

Please see bugs.kali.org/changelog_page.php for the most up-to-date log of changes.

• Kali 2023.2a — 6th June, 2023 — Minor release, fixes UEFI issue in base-images, and fix sound in the Hyper-V images.
• Kali 2023.2 — 30th May, 2023 — The second 2023 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 6.1.0, Xfce 4.18.2.
• Kali 2023.1 — 13th March, 2023 — 10 Years! The first 2023 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 6.1.0, Xfce 4.18.1.

• Kali 2022.4 — 6th December, 2022 — The fourth 2022 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 6.0.0, Xfce 4.16.5.
• Kali 2022.3 — 9th August, 2022 — The third 2022 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.18.0, Xfce 4.16.4.
• Kali 2022.2 — 16th May, 2022 — The second 2022 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.16.0, Xfce 4.16.4.
• Kali 2022.1 — 14th February, 2022 — The first 2022 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.15.0, Xfce 4.16.3.

• Kali 2021.4a — 23rd December, 2021 — Minor release, fixes audio issues in base-images.
• Kali 2021.4 — 9th December, 2021 — The fourth 2021 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.14.0, Xfce 4.16.3.
• Kali 2021.3a — 21st October, 2021 — No fanfare release, fixes minor issues with base-images (missing firmware, size and bug with USB encrypted persistence).
• Kali 2021.3 — 14th September, 2021 — The third 2021 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.10.0, Xfce 4.16.3.
• Kali 2021.2 — 1st June, 2021 — The second 2021 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.10.0, Xfce 4.16.2.
• Kali 2021.1 — 24th February, 2021 — The first 2021 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.10.0, Xfce 4.16.1.

• Kali 2020.4 — 18th November, 2020 — The fourth 2020 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.9.0, Xfce 4.14.4.
• Kali 2020.3 — 18th August, 2020 — The third 2020 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.7.0, Xfce 4.14.4.
• Kali 2020.2 — 12th May, 2020 — The second 2020 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.5.0, Xfce 4.14.4.
• Kali 2020.1b — 18th March, 2020 — Minor bug fix release (Offline setup issue).
• Kali 2020.1a — 13th February, 2020 — Minor bug fix release (xserver-xorg issue).
• Kali 2020.1 — 28th January, 2020 — The first 2020 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.4.0, Xfce 4.14.2.

• Kali 2019.4 — 26th November, 2019 — The fourth 2019 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.3.9, Xfce 4.14.1.
• Kali 2019.3 — 2nd September, 2019 — The third 2019 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 5.2.9, GNOME 3.30.2.
• Kali 2019.2 — 21st May, 2019 — The second 2019 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.19.28, GNOME 3.30.2.
• Kali 2019.1a — 4th March, 2019 — Minor bug fix release (VMware Installer).
• Kali 2019.1 — 18th February, 2019 — The first 2019 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.19.13, GNOME 3.30.2.

• Kali 2018.4 — 29th October, 2018 — The fourth 2018 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.18.0, GNOME 3.30.1.
• Kali 2018.3 — 27th August, 2018 — The third 2018 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.17.0, GNOME 3.28.2.
• Kali 2018.2 — 30th April, 2018 — The second 2018 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.15.0, GNOME 3.28.0.
• Kali 2018.1 — 6th February, 2018 — The first 2018 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.14.12, GNOME 3.26.2.

• Kali 2017.3 — 21st November, 2017 — The third 2017 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.13, GNOME 3.26.
• Kali 2017.2 — 20th September, 2017 — The second 2017 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.12, GNOME 3.25.
• Kali 2017.1 — 25th April, 2017 — The first 2017 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.9, GNOME 3.22.

• Kali 2016.2 — 31st August, 2016 — The second 2016 Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.6, GNOME 3.20.2.
• Kali 2016.1 — 21st January, 2016 — The first Kali Rolling release. Kernel 4.3, GNOME 3.18.

• Kali 2.0 — 11th August, 2015 — Major release, “safi”, now a rolling distribution, major UI changes.

• Kali 1.1.0a — 13th March, 2015 — No fanfare release, fixing kernel ABI inconsistencies in the installers.
• Kali 1.1.0 — 9th Febuary, 2015 — First dot release in 2 years. New kernel, new tools and updates.
• Kali 1.0.9a — 6th October, 2014 — Security bug fix release covering shellshock and Debian apt vulnerabilities.
• Kali 1.0.9 — 25th August, 2014 — Bug fix release including installer and a set of tool updates and package fixes.
• Kali 1.0.8 — 22nd July, 2014 — EFI Support for our) and package fixes.
• Kali 1.0.7 — 27th May, 2014 — Kernel 3.14, tool updates, package fixes, Kali Live Encrypted USB Persistence.
• Kali 1.0.6 — 9th January, 2014 — Kernel 3.12, cryptsetup nuke option, Amazon AMI, ARM build scripts.
• Kali 1.0.5 — 5th September, 2013 — Bug fix rollup. LVM Encrypted installs, Software Defined Radio (SDR) tools.
• Kali 1.0.4 — 25th July, 2013 — Bug fix rollup. Penetration testing tool additions and updates.
• Kali 1.0.3 — 26th April, 2013 — Bug fix rollup. New accessibility features. Added live Desktop installer.
• Kali 1.0.2 — 27th March, 2013 — Minor Bug fix release and update roll-up.
• Kali 1.0.1 — 14th March, 2013 — Minor Bug fix release (USB Keyboard).
• Kali 1.0.0 — 13th March, 2013 — Initial release, “moto”.

• Legacy Operating Systems releases.

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