Install Kali Linux in a VMware ESXi Virtual Machine

Last updated: Jul 10, 2022

There are many compatible devices under Kali Linux as we can see on the download page : https://www.kali.org/.

Curiously there is no native ESXi prebuild image. Indeed, in the Virtual Machines part there is a VMware Kali Linux image but it is for VMware Workstation product which is not natively compatible with the VMware ESXi product.

I will detail here a method to import the VMware Workstation image to an VMware ESXi host.

Configuration :
- VMware ESXi : 7
- Kali Linux Release : 2022.2

Download Kali Linux

The first thing to do is to connect to the official download page : https://www.kali.org

Then click on Virtual Machines :

Kali Linux | Official Website > Download Page

Choose your download method (Torrent or direct download) :

Kali Linux | Official Website > Download Virtual Machines page

Once downloaded you should have an 7zip archive file :

Kali Linux | kali-linux-2022.2-vmware-amd64.7z file

Extract files, here for example, from a GNU/Linux shell (this command extract files to a KALI folder) :

user@host:~$ mkdir KALI && 7z e ./kali-linux-2022.2-vmware-amd64.7z -o./KALI/

Import Kali Linux Virtual Machine to VMware ESXi

Import to ESXi host

Note : Connect to your ESXi web page and accept the https web certificate first (otherwise upload from vcsa won't work).

Go to datastore menu, select storage where you want to store the Kali Linux Virtual Machine and click to «UPLOAD FOLDER» link :

VMware | upload folder to a datastore from vcsa

Once uploaded, open KALI folder, select Kali-Linux-2022.2-vmware-amd64.vmx file and click to «REGISTER VM» link :

VMware | Resgsister a new virtual machine from vcsa

From main menu do a right click to Kali-Linux-2022.2-vmware-amd64 Virtual Machine and Upgrade VM Compatibility :

Enable SSH and convert vmdk disk

From vcsa web console go to Configure > Services and start ssh service :

VMware | start ssh server from vcsa web page

Connect to ESXi host via ssh :

user@host:~$ ssh root@ESXi_IP

List datastores :

[root@localhost:~] df -h
	Filesystem   Size   Used Available Use% Mounted on
	VMFS-6     465.0G 286.4G    178.6G  62% /vmfs/volumes/500G
	VMFS-L     119.8G   3.9G    115.9G   3% /vmfs/volumes/OSDATA-0269c4cb-fe6feb41-f534-d4be32a1d43e
	vfat         4.0G 203.8M      3.8G   5% /vmfs/volumes/BOOTBANK1
	vfat         4.0G  64.0K      4.0G   0% /vmfs/volumes/BOOTBANK2

Move to the KALI directory :

[root@localhost:~] cd /vmfs/volumes/500G/KALI

Rename vmdk file :

[root@localhost:~] mv Kali-Linux-2022.2-vmware-amd64.vmdk OLD.vmdk

Convert vmdk file :

[root@localhost:~] vmkfstools -i OLD.vmdk Kali-Linux-2022.2-vmware-amd64.vmdk

You should now be able to start the Kali Linux Virtual Machine, don't forget the default login / password : kali / kali 🙂

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Misc

Install Kali Linux in a VMware ESXi Virtual Machine

Download Kali Linux

Import Kali Linux Virtual Machine to VMware ESXi

Import to ESXi host

Enable SSH and convert vmdk disk