No symlinks in current kali-linux-1.1.0a-armhf.img.xz

[Dave Driesen]

Is the current base ARM image valid? (kali-linux-1.1.0a-armhf.img.xz)

The partition inside the image is ext4 but does not contain a single symlink.

This leads to all sorts of problems using the image.

Other images do have symlinks.

[steev]

I'm not sure what/where that image is generated from - I don't build that one so I'm unaware of its status. What are you attempting to use it for, is the main question.

[Dave Driesen]

What I'm doing is building a rootfs for ASUS transformer series. I've succeeded in that I took the kali image and copied over all the symlinks from a stock debian ARM image.

The rootfs now boots and works fine so far but ideally the rootfs should be based entirely on the kali image, not patched up with /etc/alternatives and /bin, /sbin symlinks from debian..

Maybe I'm doing something wrong while mounting, but tbh would not know what.. It looks like it's been copied through a fat partition or something else which does not support symlinks?

[steev]

Is this still the case with 2.0?

[Dave Driesen]

Indeed, sadly the same for 2.0:

root@kali:~# wget http://cdimage.kali.org/kali-2.0/kali-linux-light-2.0-armhf.img.xz
Saving to: `kali-linux-light-2.0-armhf.img.xz'

100%[==========================================================================>] 615,093,060  359K/s   in 29m 17s

2015-08-18 17:39:59 (342 KB/s) - `kali-linux-light-2.0-armhf.img.xz' saved [615093060/615093060]

root@kali:~# xz --decompress kali-linux-light-2.0-armhf.img.xz
root@kali:~# mkdir rootfs

root@kali:~# kpartx -v -a kali-linux-light-2.0-armhf.img
add map loop1p1 (254:0): 0 3880960 linear /dev/loop1 2048 <- success

root@kali:~# mount -v -t ext4 /dev/mapper/loop1p1 rootfs/
/dev/mapper/loop1p1 on /tmp/rootfs type ext4 (rw) <- successful ext4 mount

root@kali:~# ls rootfs/bin -1 | wc -l
143 <- /bin is populated; shows 143 files

root@kali:~# find rootfs/ -type l | wc -l
0 <- but none of the expected symlinks are there

root@kali:~# vdir rootfs/bin | grep "\->"
<- no output

root@kali:~#

On any debian system I would expect to see some symlinks at least:

.:[17:54|root|debian:~]:. vdir /bin | grep "\->"
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Mar  1  2012 ash -> dash
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      6 Jul 29  2012 bzcmp -> bzdiff
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      6 Jul 29  2012 bzegrep -> bzgrep
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      6 Jul 29  2012 bzfgrep -> bzgrep
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      6 Jul 29  2012 bzless -> bzmore
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      8 Jun 10  2012 lessfile -> lesspipe
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Apr  7  2013 lsmod -> kmod
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     20 Apr  9  2014 mt -> /etc/alternatives/mt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     20 Apr  9  2014 nc -> /etc/alternatives/nc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     24 Apr  9  2014 netcat -> /etc/alternatives/netcat
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      6 Apr 29  2012 open -> openvt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      3 Jun  7  2012 paxcpio -> pax
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      3 Jun  7  2012 paxtar -> pax
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     14 Jul 14  2013 pidof -> /sbin/killall5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Sep 25  2014 rbash -> bash
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Jun 22  2012 rnano -> nano
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Apr 28  2014 sh -> bash
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Apr  9  2014 sh.distrib -> dash

And that's just /bin... It also means that there is no /bin/sh in the image, nothing in /etc/rc*.d, nothing in /etc/alternatives, etc

Any input welcome -- thanks

[steev]

As I said, I don't build the image - this sounds like something for bugs.kali.org since the image appears to not be generated properly. Again, I'm not familiar with what/where it's built, so I can't really say what is going wrong with it.

[Dave Driesen]

Thanks anyway for valuable insights steev! I've logged it as a bug on the tracker indeed.