You can install VMware workstation or player on Kali Linux, allowing you to use virtual machines inside of Kali. However if you wish to use Kali as a virtual machine, you want our Kali Linux Guest VMware page.
Before trying to install VMware, please make sure your version of Kali is up-to-date, and required, reboot the machine.kali@kali:~$ sudo apt update kali@kali:~$ sudo apt dist-upgrade -y kali@kali:~$ [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f
To start with, you will need to download VMware. You can do this by going to VMware’s download page. At the time of writing, the latest version is 15.5.1-15018445.
Alternatively, you can do the following command line method:kali@kali:~$ sudo apt install -y curl
kali@kali:~$ kali@kali:~$ cd Downloads/ kali@kali:~/Downloads$ curl -L https://www.vmware.com/go/getworkstation-linux > vmware.bin kali@kali:~/Downloads$
kali@kali:~/Downloads$ file vmware.bin vmware.bin: a /usr/bin/env bash script executable (binary data) kali@kali:~/Downloads$
kali@kali:~/Downloads$ ls -lah vmware.bin -rwxr-xr-x 1 kali kali 511M Feb 14 20:46 vmware.bin kali@kali:~/Downloads$
When everything is up-to-date, and ready to go, make sure the file is executable and then call it.
kali@kali:~$ cd Downloads/
kali@kali:~/Downloads$ chmod +x VMware-Workstation-Full-15.5.1-15018445.x86_64.bundle
kali@kali:~/Downloads$ sudo ./VMware-Workstation-Full-15.5.1-15018445.x86_64.bundle Extracting VMware Installer...done. Installing VMware Workstation 15.5.1 Configuring... [######################################################################] 100% Installation was successful. kali@kali:~/Downloads$
After the installer is installed, you should be able to just run vmware to continue setup.kali@kali:~/Downloads$ vmware
At this point, you should be be straight forward, often just clicking through.
The first part may be VMware Kernel Modules:
If vmware wasn’t called with superuser privileges, you may be prompted for a password:
At this point, it may not install correctly, and get the error message: Unable to install all modules. See log /tmp/vmware-kali/vmware-*.log for details. (Exit code 1). This is often due to Kali’s kernel being newer than what VMware is expecting. Looking at the log may help with troubleshooting the issue as well as the guide at the end of this post.
You will need to accept the legal agreement:
You may wish for it VMware to check for any updates:
You may wish to join “VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program”:
Enter the current username:
Enter a location for Shared VMs (this is different to each users own VMs):
Enter a port for HTTPS access
If you have a product key, you can enter it now, else it will be a trial for 30 days:
You may be once again prompt for superuser privileges if you didn’t execute the setup file with it:
The final screen should look like this:
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