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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0000842Kali LinuxKali Package Improvementpublic2014-01-05 20:202023-11-17 12:19
Reportermark_k Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityhave not tried
Status assignedResolutionopen 
Summary0000842: [kali-metadata-live-iso] hexedit, disktype, testdisk, ddpt, sg3-utils, lsscsi, mt-st
Description

Not sure whether this is strictly a "New Tool Request" since all these suggestions are already in the repository (i.e. are apt-get-able). But it would be nice to have them on the Kali DVD image. These are likely to be most useful for data recovery purposes.

hexedit: simple binary file editor

disktype: Useful for identifying partition type/layout of an image file or drive

testdisk: Can recover partition layouts and some deleted files. 6.13 in repository, 6.14 is latest.

ddpt: Great for imaging disks and other uses. Can create sparse files which can be a huge time and disk I/O saver. [Many disks have tens or hundreds of gigabytes all-zero sectors. Creating a sparse image file saves writing that all-zero data to the destination. Big win when the destination file is on an SSD or slow USB drive.] You can use ddpt to manually "trim" SSDs. Can optionally read or write using direct SCSI commands, not the Linux block layer. Very useful for reading failing drives to avoid interference from the block layer. 0.92 in repository, 0.93 is latest.

sg3-utils: Programs for working with SCSI devices (which includes SATA and USB drives). READ CAPACITY, TEST UNIT READY, INQUIRY, LOAD/UNLOAD, ...

lsscsi: List block devices and the corresponding SCSI device (lsscsi -g)

mt-st: Replacement for the default GNU mt program. Used to control tape drives. Unlike GNU mt, mt-st supports most features of the Linux st SCSI tape driver.

Activities

dookie

dookie

2014-01-08 23:43

reporter   ~0001300

I don't know that we want to fork and start maintaining testdisk and we have ncurses-hexedit instead of hexedit. I'm not sure if there's benefit to include both.
As for the other tool suggestions, they look pretty good and will only cost 2,357 kB of additional disk space. They won't make it into 1.0.6 but we may shoot for 1.0.7.
mark_k

mark_k

2014-01-09 17:58

reporter   ~0001315

Ah, I didn't know about ncurses-hexedit. Probably not much point in including hexedit then.

If I could make another hex editor suggestion though... (I can file a separate issue for this if you want). wxHexEditor is a nice graphical binary file editor, can edit files, block devices and process memory and has some support for x86 disassembly. See http://www.wxhexeditor.org/home.php
It's in Debian testing/unstable: http://packages.debian.org/sid/wxhexeditor
Dependencies which aren't already on the DVD: libdisasm0, libunwind7
mark_k

mark_k

2019-02-23 20:46

reporter   ~0010363

Just "bump"ing this...

For disk imaging I'd really like ddpt, sg3-utils and lsscsi to be on the Kali ISO. As mentioned ddpt is a massive time and disk space saver since it can create image files sparsely.

For controlling tape drives, mt in package mt-st is much more capable than the default mt.
mark_k

mark_k

2023-11-17 12:19

reporter   ~0018634

Another bump. And to suggest also adding nvme-cli to the Kali DVD image. Tools for working with NVMe drives.

Having forensic mode is great, but there could be more storage-related tools available by default (rather than needing to connect to network and apt install them). Like ddpt, sg3-utils, lsscsi as mentioned above, and nvme-cli.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2014-01-05 20:20 mark_k New Issue
2014-01-08 23:43 dookie Note Added: 0001300
2014-01-08 23:43 dookie Assigned To => dookie
2014-01-08 23:43 dookie Status new => assigned
2014-01-09 17:58 mark_k Note Added: 0001315
2018-01-29 14:24 g0tmi1k Summary Suggestions for Kali DVD image: hexedit, disktype, testdisk, ddpt, sg3-utils, lsscsi, mt-st => hexedit, disktype, testdisk, ddpt, sg3-utils, lsscsi, mt-st
2018-01-29 15:00 g0tmi1k Category New Tool Requests => Kali Package Improvement
2018-01-29 15:00 g0tmi1k Summary hexedit, disktype, testdisk, ddpt, sg3-utils, lsscsi, mt-st => [kali-metadata-live-iso] hexedit, disktype, testdisk, ddpt, sg3-utils, lsscsi, mt-st
2018-09-12 07:55 g0tmi1k Assigned To dookie => g0tmi1k
2019-02-23 20:46 mark_k Note Added: 0010363
2020-12-01 10:47 g0tmi1k Assigned To g0tmi1k =>
2023-11-17 12:19 mark_k Note Added: 0018634