Dan The IOT Man

Building a Raspberry Pi 4 Ethical Hacking platform using The Pentesters Framework and DietPi (Cross posted from cyberarms.wordpress.com). I’ve been playing with using different hacking tools and Operating Systems with the Pi 4. In this article I cover installing The Pentesters Framework on a RPi 4 running DietPi.

DietPi is a very lightweight Debian OS for the Raspberry Pi. The Pentesters Framework by TrustedSec is an Ethical Hacking installation script that automatically installs and updates over 250 modules/ tools. It would be great if they would work together on a Raspberry Pi 4. The good news is that is does – With a couple tweaks.

I cover installing and using The Pentesters Framework on Raspberry Pi in my latest book. So, I am not going to go into great detail on using the tools in PTF. I just want to cover actually installing it on DietPi.

Installing

NOTE: You will need a Raspberry Pi 4, and at the minimum a 32 GB MicroSD card if you want to install all of the PTF tools. Don’t have a Pi 4? Seeed is currently offering free shipping for orders over $119 with a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB.

• Download the Raspberry Pi version of DietPi ( https://dietpi.com/#download )
• Next, expand the file
• Write the image to a MicroSD card, balenaEtcher works great!

Insert the MicroSD card into your Pi, attach peripherals and lastly connect power (always connect power last). When DietPi boots up you will be presented with some options.

• Pick any software install options you want, then “Go install software”
• Requested software and updates will be installed
• Reboot when finished

I just run through it quickly the first time to get the latest OS updates. Note the CPU temp warning, it’s a Pi 4, it runs hotter than a Pi 3.

To install an “X” Desktop or any other included software, type, “dietpi-software”.

There are a ton of add-on software options under “Software Optimised”. For example, if you want a graphical desktop, pick the X-Desktop you want and then the “Go install software” option. You can also setup your login preferences from this menu – auto login, desktop login, etc.

All we really need here is to install Python. Then we need to make a small config file tweak and finally install PTF.

Installing Python

From the DietPi-Software menu, go to “Software Additional” and install Python:

• Cursor down to Python Pip, hit the space bar to select it.

• Select “OK”

You will return to the main menu.,

• Cursor down and select “Go >> Start Installation”
• Reboot when finished

We need to install git:

• Open a terminal and enter, “apt install git”

Next we need to comment out a line in the ‘/etc/hosts’ file or the PTF install will error out.

• Comment out the “::1 localhost  IPv6 localhost” line
• Reboot

That’s it! We can now proceed with the standard PTF install:

• git clone https://github.com/trustedsec/ptf.git
• cd ptf
• ./ptf

You will then see the main PTF interface:

Type “show modules” to see all available modules. You can install individual ones if you wish. If you have a large memory card (32 Gb), you can install all of them.

• To install all tools, enter “use modules/install_update_all“

• Reboot when finished

The install will take a very long time, especially if you install all of the modules. After install, all tools will be located in category themed directories under the ‘/pentest’ directory, as seen below:

Many of the tools can be run from anywhere, but some tools require you to change into its install directory for it to work properly. This is usually ‘/pentest’, but some run from ‘/usr/share’ as well. Check it out, there are a ton of very good tools at your disposal, like “Sniper”:

And there you have it. Again, I go into much deeper detail in my book about using PTF on a Pi, I just wanted to show how it could be installed on DietPi. If you want to learn a lot more about using Raspberry Pi for Ethical hacking check out my latest book – Security Testing with Raspberry Pi