How to setup a Kali Server

Install Kali

For this guide I've chosen to use the kali-light iso, because I'll be removing the Window Manager and other tools, I'll also only selecting certain programs to install on this build. Just install the light iso like you would any other instance of kali, keeping the default settings ect.

Initial tweaks

Because this will be a server and not a desktop I'll remove the Window Manager, enable ssh login for root, and having ssh start on boot.

First permit root with ssh access 

sed -i "s/^#\PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin yes/g" /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Next enable ssh at boot 

systemctl enable ssh

Finally remove the Window Manager 

apt update && apt purge kali-desktop-common kali-desktop-live kali-desktop-xfce xfce4 xfce4-* -y && apt autoremove -y

Right after that is done, lets reboot

Interface issue

Because we have removed the Window Manager the interface settings may not be correct anymore to fix find the interface name with ip a and edit the /etc/network/interfaces file, adding the interface in. 

echo -e "auto ens32\niface ens32 inet dhcp" >> /etc/network/interfaces

SSH tweaks

For this setup i don't want to have to use a password, i want to use my SSH keys.

First copy your ssh keys to the server 

ssh-copy-id root@server-ip

Next don't allow password auth, change to the following settings in /etc/ssh/sshd_config 

PubkeyAuthentication yes
PasswordAuthentication no

Install tools

Comforts

apt update && apt install zsh tmux fortunes git  -y

zsh configuration

git clone --recursive https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto.git "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zprezto"

setopt EXTENDED_GLOB
for rcfile in "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}"/.zprezto/runcoms/^README.md(.N); do
  ln -s "$rcfile" "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.${rcfile:t}"
done

chsh -s /bin/zsh

Kali tools

apt update && apt upgrade -y && apt install kali-linux-web -y

External tools

I'm not going to tell you how to set up your own server, for me all external tools go in /opt and i use the following script to get updates 

#!/bin/bash
apt-get -qq update && \
    apt-get -qq -y upgrade && \
    apt-get -qq autoremove -y
for dir in $(ls /opt); do
    cd /opt/$dir
    git pull
done

Cleanup

We don't need all the Window Manager stuff anymore, I'm going to remove it 

cd && rm -r Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos

passwd -l root