Spin a Kali Linux instance on AWS within 60 seconds for free

Many of you know that AWS now has Kali Linux as an official and so I love the fact that they have an official Amazon Machine Image (AMI).  This makes spinning up a Kali instance in AWS very easy and painfree however I found that Jerry Gamblin wrote a script that will spin up a Kali Linux instance within 60 seconds and he wrote this script during a long flight. With AWS cost at $0.046/hr or using EC2 free account, it might be useful for few users to spin a Kali Linux instance on AWS within 60 seconds for free, specially when you do not have a full Kali Installation running on their low powered devices (or mobile maybe? .. who knows!)

In case you’re wondering, Azure also has Kali Linux instance as a deployable image. I’ve used it few times for some testing. Works just fine.

Spin a Kali Linux instance on AWS within 60 seconds for free - blackMORE Ops

This script does the following:

  • Builds a security group that only allows SSH access from your current public IP.
  • Writes a new SSH Key in ~/Documents/instantkali/
  • Creates a t2.medium EC2 instance.

Following code takes from github:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
set -u

clear

ami="ami-10e00b6d"
size="t2.medium"
today=$(date +"%m-%d-%y-%H%M")
localip=$(curl -s https://ipinfo.io/ip)

printf "Launching Kali EC2 Instance.\\n"
printf "AMI: %s\\n" "$ami"
printf "Type: %s\\n" "$size"
printf "\\n"

# Create SSH Key
mkdir -p  ~/Documents/instantkali/
aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name KaliKey$today --query 'KeyMaterial' --output text >  ~/Documents/instantkali/KaliKey$today.pem
chmod 400  ~/Documents/instantkali/KaliKey"$today".pem

# Create Security Group
aws ec2 create-security-group --group-name KaliSecurityGroupSSHOnly"$today" --description "Inbound SSH only from my IP address" > /dev/null
aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress --group-name KaliSecurityGroupSSHOnly"$today" --cidr "$localip"/32 --protocol tcp --port 22


# Launch a Ec2 instance
instance=$(aws ec2 run-instances --image-id $ami --instance-type $size --key-name KaliKey$today --security-groups KaliSecurityGroupSSHOnly$today --output text)

id=$(printf "$instance" | grep INSTANCES | cut -f 8)
state=$(printf "$instance" | grep STATE | head -n 1 | cut -f 3)
printf "Instance launched: %s \\n" "$id"
printf "\\n"

# tag the instance
aws ec2 create-tags --resources $id --tags Key=Name,Value="Kali$today"

printf "Starting Instance: \\n"

# Wait for instance in `running` status
while [ "$state" = pending ]; do
    echo -ne "Waiting for running status.\\r"
    sleep 10
    info=$(aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids $id --output text)
    state=$(echo "$info" | grep STATE | cut -f 3)
done

printf "\\n"


# Fetch the publish host name
awsip=$(aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids $id --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].PublicIpAddress" --output=text)

# Probe SSH connection until it's avalable
X_READY=''
while [ ! $X_READY ]; do
    echo -ne "Waiting for ready status.\\r"
    sleep 10
    set +e
    out=$(ssh -o ConnectTimeout=1 -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o BatchMode=yes ec2-user@$awsip 2>&1 | grep 'Permission denied' )
    [[ $? = 0 ]] && X_READY='ready'
    set -e
done

printf "\\n"
printf "\\n"

# Done
printf "Kali is Ready! Login With:\\n"
printf "ssh -i ~/Documents/instantkali/KaliKey%s.pem ec2-user@%s\\n" "$today" "$awsip"

Check Also

Whispers: A Powerful Static Code Analysis Tool for Credential Detection

“My little birds are everywhere, even in the North, they whisper to me the strangest …

Enabling AMD GPU for Hashcat on Kali Linux: A Quick Guide

Enabling AMD GPU for Hashcat on Kali Linux: A Quick Guide

If you’ve encountered an issue where Hashcat initially only recognizes your CPU and not the …

Leave your solution or comment to help others.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from blackMORE Ops

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Privacy Policy on Cookies Usage

Some services used in this site uses cookies to tailor user experience or to show ads.