2020 Setup

Alexis Rodriguez

Oct 18, 2020·2 min read

Hi! In this tutorial, I will show you how to install Snort on Kali Linux. Installing Snort is not as easy (it’s a pain in the a**) as installing other tools where we simply need to run the command sudo apt install [tool_name]. Because Snort does not exist as a package within Kali’s apt repository, we will need to use Ubuntu’s apt repositories. Let’s get Snort installed on your machine.

Make a Backup of Current Sources.list File

First, we need to create a backup of Kali’s sources.list file in order to restore it later:

mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak

Remove currently installed Kali Updates

Go to /var/lib/apt/lists and delete all the files within the directory, leaving only the partial and auxfiles directory:

find /var/lib/apt/lists -type f -exec rm {} \;

Download Ubuntu Sources.list File

Download Ubuntu’s sources.list file into the /etc/apt/ directory:

wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ishad0w/788555191c7037e249a439542c53e170/raw/3822ba49241e6fd851ca1c1cbcc4d7e87382f484/sources.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list

Attempting to Update

Attempting to update withsudo apt updateusing the Ubuntu Sources.list file will generate an error regarding GPG public keys:

GPG error: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 3B4FE6ACC0B21F32 NO_PUBKEY 871920D1991BC93C

informing us that the Ubuntu server public keys were not found on our machine. So, we need to add the specified public keys to our computer:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 3B4FE6ACC0B21F32
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 871920D1991BC93C

Run sudo apt update and you should be ready to install snort now!

Install Snort

After successfully updating our apt repository using the Ubuntu sources.list file, we can install Snort:

sudo apt install snort

Note: You will be prompted to enter the IP address or IP address range of your computer using CIDR notation for Snort’s configuration. Enter your IP address or IP address range and hit enter.

Restoring Kali’s Repository Sources.list File

After installing Snort, remove the new update files located in /var/lib/apt/lists:

find /var/lib/apt/lists -type f -exec rm {} \;

Then, rename the current Ubuntu sources.list file to ubuntu_sources.list, just in case you need it again in the future:

mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/ubuntu_sources.list

Finally, rename the Kali Linux /etc/apt/sources.list.bak file back to /etc/apt/sources.list:

mv /etc/apt/sources.list.bak /etc/apt/sources.list

and run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade.

The End

You now have Snort installed! Run snort --version to confirm the installation. Thank you for your time. If you found this article helpful, follow me because I will be writing a comprehensive article soon concerning Snort rule writing. Please share or give me some claps!!!