The Raspberry Pi Zero W has a single core 1GHz, with 512MB of RAM. Kali Linux fits on an external microSD card. Unlike the Raspberry Pi Zero, the Raspberry Pi Zero W has wireless networking on the board.

By default, the Kali Linux Raspberry Pi Zero W image contains the kali-linux-default metapackage similar to most other platforms. If you wish to install extra tools please refer to our metapackages page.

If you’re unfamiliar with the details of downloading and validating a Kali Linux image, or for using that image to create a bootable device, it’s strongly recommended that you refer to the more detailed procedures described in the specific articles on those subjects.

To install a pre-built image of the standard build of Kali Linux on your Raspberry Pi Zero W, follow these instructions:

1. Get a fast microSD card with at least 16GB capacity. Class 10 cards are highly recommended.
2. Download and validate the Kali Raspberry Pi Zero/Zero W image from the downloads area. The process for validating an image is described in more detail on Downloading Kali Linux.
3. Use the dd utility to image this file to your microSD card (same process as making a Kali USB.

In our example, we assume the storage device is located at /dev/sdX. Do not simply copy these value, change this to the correct drive path.

$ xzcat kali-linux-2024.3-raspberry-pi-zero-w-armel.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

This process can take a while, depending on your PC, your microSD card’s speed, and the size of the Kali Linux image.

Once the dd operation is complete, boot up the Raspberry Pi Zero W with the microSD card plugged in.

You should be able to log in to Kali.

Kali on Raspberry Pi Zero W Headless - Tips and Tricks

You can add a wpa_supplicant.conf file to the first partition of the microSD card to connect to a wireless network.

You can create this file on another Linux system by running wpa_passphrase YOURNETWORK > wpa_supplicant.conf. It will prompt you for the wireless network’s password. You can add the password to the command as you run it, but keep in mind that if you do, your Wi-Fi network password will be in your user’s shell history.

If you want to customize the Kali Raspberry Pi Zero W image, including changes to the packages being installed, changing the desktop environment, increasing or decreasing the image file size or generally being adventurous, check out the Kali-ARM Build-Scripts repository on GitLab, and follow the README.md file’s instructions. The script to use is raspberry-pi-zero-w.sh.