TangeriNixOS

NixOS tailored for pentesting.

Think Kali / Parrot, but being a customisation of NixOS instead of being based on Debian.

How to use

It is meant to be installed and run from a NixOS host, using a qemu virtual machine.

# Pull the configuration
git clone [email protected]:Pamplemousse/tangerinixos.git

# Optional, to speed-up evaluation.
cachix use tangerinixos

# Build and run the VM
nix-shell -p nixos-generators --run "nixos-generate -f vm -c ./tangerinixos.nix --run"

Tips

• Use tangerinixos.cachix.org (updated using GitHub Actions) to speed-up the build by pulling cached binaries;
• Shared folder: Host's /run/user/$(id -u)/nix-vm.<ID> is mounted as /tmp/xchg in VM;
• SSH traffic is forwarded from host: ssh [email protected] -p 8022 to connect to the VM.

Limitations

• VM configuration: Is defined by the nixos-generate -f vm command given above, with no control over the image parameters, or the starting script. It would be great to be able define alternative networking options (interfacing, mapping of ports between host and guest, etc.).
• Customizability: It requires manual editing of files after the clone. It would be nice to offer higher level options.
• Lack of packages: Are We Hackers Yet? keeps track of the effort of bringing Kali packages into Nixpkgs. Not all are yet available, but it's getting there! Be part of the effort by contributing to NixOS for Pentesting Overview.
• Too many packages (for maintenance): Not all the packages from Kali available in Nixpkgs evaluate properly... Increasing the number of packages for tangerinixos implies increasing the risk of evaluation (hence building) failures.

Credits

• The logo uses:
  • A picture shared by Doudoulolita, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons;
  • Artwork from the NixOS organisation, CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.