Welcome to our article on How to install Linux Kernel Headers on Kali Linux 2.0. Just installed Kali Linux 2.0 or upgraded to Kali Linux 2.0 and you need to install Kernel headers?. On our previous article, we talked about how to upgrade to Kali Linux 2.0 (Kali Sana) from the 1.x version of Kali Linux.When you install new Kali Linux, it doesn’t come with Linux kernel headers out of the box and you’ll have to install them manually, the easiest way to do that will be explained shortly.
Need for Linux headers
Kernel header files in the Linux kernel are used for two purposes:
- To define interfaces between components of the kernel, and
- To define interfaces between the kernel and userspace
Linux headers are needed for building modules that load into the kernel provided by the Linux kernel. When you need to run virtual machines using hypervisors such as Virtualbox and Vmware Workstation on Kali Linux, it will require you to have Linux kernel headers installed.
How to install Linux Kernel Headers on Kali Linux 2.0
Follow the following short tutorial on how to install Linux kernel headers. If you are on Kali Linux 2.0, make sure you have the following repositories on your sources.list file:
leafpad /etc/apt/sources.list
or
vim /etc/apt/sources.list
Modify repositories
If the following repositories don’t exist, overwrite old ones with ones below.
# Regular Repositories deb http://http.kali.org/kali sana main non-free contrib deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security sana/updates main contrib non-free # Source repositories deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali sana main non-free contrib deb-src http://security.kali.org/kali-security sana/updates main contrib non-free
Update apt-cache and upgrade:
Then do:
$ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get upgrade
After that, check your kernel version by typing:
$ uname -r
Install kernel headers
To install kernel headers, run the command:
$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
You can also append kernel version to Linux-headers command.For example
$ apt-get install linux-headers-<version>
See screenshot below for more details
For your Kali Linux version is 1.x, just do:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
You can read my article on How to add Kali default repositories for Kali Linux 1.x. That’s all about How to install Linux Kernel Headers on Kali Linux 2.0. Let me know in case you encounter any issues. I’ll be happy to help where possible.
How to install Linux Kernel Headers on Kali Linux 2.0 Search words
installing kernel headers on Kali Linux
Install Virtualbox on Kali Linux
Running Virtualbox on Kali Linux 2.0
How to install Linux-headers-4.0.0-kali1-amd64 on Kali Linux 2.0 (Kali Sana)
Kernel headers for Kali Linux
