How To: Chrome OS = Your New PenTesting Tool

Great tutorial glad to see someone finally giving the public some info on how to configure crouton on chromebooks. The public needs more info on how to configure chromebooks for pentesting.

Only issue I found from using crouton on chromebook was like you said at the end of your post. That the distro running in crouton (in this case Kali Sana), is stuck using the kernel version that chrome OS is using. Kali Sana normally runs on 4.0 kernel and many of the tools are configured and tested to work with the latest kernel. Chrome OS doesn't yet support 4.0.0 kernel build and it is said it won't for a very long time.

So while Kali Sana does function pretty well in crouton, I came across a few issues with getting some tools to work with the outdated kernel.

I went with the alternative of enabling the sea-bios, running a live usb of kali, doing a full install and wipe over chrome OS completely.

Thanks for the feedback! I was considering that but the convenience of having Chrome OS for when I do not need access to anything not internet based is worth having to boot from a USB for better access to tools.

Firstly great tutorial! Secondly, regarding The Joker's question about Chromebook, no they are not like normal computers. A Chromebook is really just a computer that has nothing and can't have anything but Google Chrome on it. You can download Google Chrome extensions but you can install any other software.

Cheers,
Washu

There are actually many chromebooks that are quite powerful and capable of being a fully function laptop computer(Acer C270-3404 for example). Chrome OS however, is like WASHU said, very limited. It lacks many functionalities such as burning an iso to a live CD/USB. It's possible to wipe Chrome OS completely though and have whatever OS you want.

Joker: kali (or any other iso for that matter) can be fully installed via live USB/CD to most chromebooks but requires some effort.

The arch community is very fond of Chromebooks and has a lot of support on it. I provided a few links below:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_C720_Chromebook
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chrome_OS_devices

A a chromebook is a not a normal laptop and you can't simply just burn a ISO to a DVD and boot it from a chromebook there are a a couple of reasons why a look at the chromebook laptop hardware it doesn't have anywhere to plug in a DVD or CD it only has to USB ports correct me if I'm wrong. Next you can't just inset the DVD into the CD/DVD tray and turn off the computer turn it back on and expect it to work on most computers without changing the Boot priorities in the BIOS Right? well the same rules apply for Chromebooks By default Chromebooks use the Crosh shell with is kinda of like Linux/Unix but hardly any commands it doesn't even have cd or ls ping sudo apt install etc Well think of Devloper mode like this just as changing the boot priority in BIOS or another type of firmware that's gets the computer loaded starts a another operating system that's what developer mode is it unlocks the full terminal from there you can install crouton and use your chosen operating system do not take my word for it do some reading for expert advice

can you tell the PC specs?

what is the command for if you want to install on an sd card like the full command

I'm trying to install kali using Acer C720 laptop, but it keeps getting stuck at some point. When I enter the command
sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -r sana -t extension,xiwi,kde

it starts to install kali, but at the very end it asks me something like 'enter the primary user name: ' and from that point on the screen just freezes. Did anybody experience this? I repeated the process about 4 times but still no luck.

Well I found the problem just now. It turns out that the chromebook keyboard was disabled after installation for some reason. I just hooked up my other usb keyboard and could go on from there. But there still persists another issue. When I go into the kde interface using command 'sudo startkde -n sana', it is not Kali linux. It's just empty interface with nothing in it.

I don't know why I'm having this problem. I installed everything right just like the instruction says.

I was googling to several hours to figure out how to install crouton on SD card, and finally got everything done.
First off, you need to format your SD card to ext4 format.
Here's link: http://askubuntu.com/questions/579630/formatting-128gb-sd-card-to-ext4-with-gparted
Second, you need to run this command
"sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -r trusty -t xfce -e -p /media/removable/SD" (without quotation marks)
here's another link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Crouton/comments/2p7fq8/installing_crouton_on_sd_card_ext4/

SO im having trouble downloading some files.

they are all listed on the bottom of the screen. Can any of you guys help?

Does -e replace Chrome OS with Kali? If not, what does it do? How do you get Kali Rolling?

Help! I keep getting this error: http://pastebin.com/WmQUX1qg

Ok, I have found that the versions kali and sana are outdated and do not work anymore. Instead of sana , you put kali-rolling. The only problem is that none of the tools were installed for me. Help!

you can manually install the tools you want using the apt tool. Examples are:

sudo apt-get install nmap
sudo apt-get install aircrack-ng

or you can install all the tools if you have the room for them by entering:

sudo apt-get install kali-linux-full

Hope that helps :)

so how do you start it up if your using kali rolling?
is it like the same just replace sama with kali rolling?

now it wont let me connect "must be console user"

FOXYMANGLE42 LOL

You will need to enter your chroot through command line to fix the issue

Step 1: Sudo Enter-Chroot

Step 2: sudo apt install xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-video-dummy