A new version of BlackArch Linux was released on September 1, 2019 , which includes over 150 new tools . For those unfamiliar with BlackArch Linux, it is a distribution specialized for security research and systems security studies.
The distribution is based on the Arch Linux package foundation and includes approximately 2.300 security-related utilities. The project's supporting package repository is compatible with Arch Linux and can be used in standard Arch Linux installations.
As many of you will know, Arch Linux is a Rolling Release system, so there are no new versions as such, if not continuous updates, although in the case of system images, "new compilations" are gradually released in order to offer the versions. most current system packages and thus avoid the additional download of several extra GB for the user.
The same happens for BlackArch since every so often it offers a new compilation with the update of the system packages.
The window managers fluxbox, openbox, awesome, wmii, i3 and spectrwm are offered as graphical environments , and the distribution can run in live mode, but also develops its own installer with compilation capabilities from source code.
In addition to the x86_64 architecture, the packages in the repository are also built for ARMv6, ARMv7, and Aarch64 systems and can be installed from Arch Linux ARM.
Main news of BlackArch 2019/09/01
As mentioned at the beginning, this new BlackArch compilation includes over 150 new programs added to its extensive list of tools available for network auditing, forensic analysis, and more.
While for the core of the system, this new version offers the Linux Kernel updated to version 5.2.9 (the 5.1 branch was used previously), while for the system part the installer was updated (it is version blackarch-installer 1.1.19).
For all window managers, the terminal font has been added, and the menus for the Awesome, Fluxbox, and Openbox window managers have been redesigned. However, the version with the dwm window manager was discontinued in BlackArch on September 1, 2019.
The announcement also highlights that new presets for vim were added, placed in ~ / .vim and ~ / .vimrc files.
Get Black Arch
If you wish to install this distribution or simply try it out, you can go to its official website and download the system ISO to install it or burn it to a USB drive or DVD. You can download it from here.
This new build was prepared in the form of a 15 GB live image (x86_64) in size and a shortened image for installation over the network (650 MB).
Install Black Arch tools on top of an Arch Linux installation or derivatives
Now we also have the possibility of installing Black Arch tools on our Arch Linux-based system.
To do this, simply download the following script to configure the tools. Then, open a terminal and run the following command.
First, we need to activate root user privileges:
sudo su
Now we will download the script:
curl -O https://blackarch.org/strap.sh
We proceed to give the file execution permissions:
chmod +x strap.sh
And we run the file with the following command:
sudo ./strap.sh
Having done this, we proceed to install Blackman , which will be the tool that helps us install the Black Arch tools:
sudo pacman -S blackman
From here on we can install the tools individually or by category. We can see the list of categories with the following command:
blackman -l
And to see the tools included in each category with the following command:
blackman -p <category>
To install a specific tool with the following command we do it:
sudo blackman -i <package>
Now in the case of wanting to download all the Black Arch tools of a specific category with the following command we do it:
sudo blackman -g <group>
Finally, if all you want is to install all the tools that Black Arch has, with this command you do
sudo blackman -a
Even though we have another installation method for the tools, I recommend this first since what it will do is download the tools and compile them so the chances of an error are reduced.