How to install Kali Nethunter on Nexus and OnePlusOne

After getting back from Mundo Hacker Day 2016 is now the turn to continue with the blog, thanks to the guys from StackOverFlow who lent me a OnePlusOne (aka OPO) I had the chance to play a little with the Kali Nethunter, a mod for Android/CM from the guys of Offensive Security that transforms your device in a portable tool for pentesting.

Device Android Version Notes
Nexus 4 (mako) 5.1.1
CM 13.0
Nexus 5 (hammerhead) 5.1.1 or 6.0.1
CM 13.0
Nexus 5x (bullhead) 6.0.1
Nexus 6 (shamu) 5.1.1 or 6.0.1
Nexus 6P (angler) 6.0.1
Nexus 7 2012 (grouper) 5.1.1
Nexus 7 2013 (flo) 5.1.1 or 6.0.1
CM 13.0
Nexus 9 (flounder) 5.1.1 or 6.0.1
Nexus 10 (manta) 5.1.1
OnePlus One (oneplus1) CM 12.1 or 13.0 Recommended
OnePlus Two (oneplus2) CM 12.1 or 13.0
OnePlus X (oneplusx) CM 13.0
LG G5 (h830, h850) 6.0.1
Galaxy Note 3 (hlte) CM 12.1 or 13.0
TouchWiz 5.0
Galaxy S5 (klte) CM 12.1 or 13.0
TouchWiz 5.1 or 6.0
SHIELD tablet (shieldtablet)
SHIELD tablet K1
6.0.1
CM 13.0

In this table you can check the different devices and OS versions that Nethunter supports, as one of the thing that Nethunter modifies is the kernel it makes it quite difficult to port to other devices, in my case I’m checking to port it to my BQ M5.5 but I’m not really sure what the outcome will be.

Obtaining Nethunter

The first step will be to obtain Nethunter for our device, here we have two options, we can download the latest build from here or build it on our computer.

For this post I will explain the steps using the latest build that comes ready for Nexus and OPO. I’m gonna leave the build part for when I advance more in the BQ port.

Getting the device ready

Once we have got the Nethunter the next will get the device ready for the installation.

We should unlock our device and make sure that we have a compatible version installed as per the table in the beginning of this post.

To unlock our phone we will use the following command (I assume you have access to the device using ADB):

#Reboot in fastboot mode
adb reboot bootloader
#Check that the device is indeed in fastboot mode
fastboot devices
#Unlock the device
fastboot oem unlock
#Reboot
fastboot reboot

If everything was OK we should have our device ready to continue.

Optional: Install TWRP and SuperSu to make the manual installation.

Installing Nethunter

Here we have two installation methods, manual and automatic. After several tries I finally chose the automatic one.

In case that you want to do the manual installation you should install the optional software specified mentioned above and just install the ZIP from TWRP.

Even if there is a Windows installation method I will not speak about it as I didn’t have the chance to test and don’t want to give you false tips.

The Linux installation is quite simple, first we clone the NetHunter Linux Root Toolkit with git.

git clone https://github.com/offensive-security/nethunter-LRT

Here we have all the scripts needed for the installation but not the binaries required:

  1. If you want to also use this scripts to go back to Stock or a compatible version you will need to download the images in ZIP and put them in the folder stockImage/.
  2. We download TWRP from their web and we put it in the folder twrpImage/.
  3. Download SuperSu from XDA post and put it in the folder superSu/.

In case you want to use this scripts to go back to Stock or a compatible version there are two, one for Nexus and another one for OPO, both will delete everything in your device.

  • stockNexusFlash.sh : For Nexus devices.
  • stockOpoFlash.sh : For OPO devices, note that this script needs an argument, 16gb or 64gb, depending in your model.

Once ready to install we simply execute the following script, and if everything is ok, the script will indicate which steps are being run and we will also see it working on the device.

./twrpFlash.sh

If everything is OK after the device restarts you will see the Nethunter bootsplash image and you will be ready to use it.

Hope you enjoyed this post and it helps you, in future post I will try to show you different tools that come with Nethunter. For any problem or correct feel free to leave a comment and I will gladly help.

Best regards!

References: https://github.com/offensive-security/kali-nethunter/wiki

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19 Responses to How to install Kali Nethunter on Nexus and OnePlusOne

  1. Anonymous says:

    hello could you please send me a link to download the nexus 6p angler kali nethunter img i cannot find it anywhere on the internet thank you

  2. Ian says:

    So I did everything here and it seemed to go smoothly however when it rebooted, it booted to the 1+ logo and gets stuck there. I can’t get to fastboot mode or recovery mode because my volume buttons dont work. how do I fix this?

    • KALRONG says:

      Can you see the mobile in adb? Did the buttons stop working or they didnt work before already?

      • Ian says:

        I cannot see the device in adb. The buttons stopped working before. The previous owner said that they stopped working when they where doing something inside the phone.

  3. KALRONG says:

    Thats really bad news as those buttons are the ones used to enter the recovery mode that would help fix any problems in the device, at least you need the volume up or volume down working to enter either fastboot or recovery. If at least the phone was recognized by adb you could have used it to enter any of the modes but currently I can’t think of a way to access them.

    For what you are telling me the mobile is stuck on the kernel boot usually meaning that something is wrong with the rom itself, did you make sure to have the proper version of CM installed as per the table provided?

    • Ian says:

      Yeah, I’m pretty sure I have 13.0

      • KALRONG says:

        Only thing I can think of is that the installation failed at some point (the nethunter is basically a lot of scripts that tweaks the CM) causing the rom to become unbootable, the major problem here are the volume buttons as are the only mean you currently have to get to fastboot/recovery mode.

        I have double checked in the nethunter website in case they did change the recommended version of CM but 13 is still the one.

        Im also seeing in xda that the volume buttons not working is a common issue and that 1+ fix them via RMA, but if this is second hand I don’t think it applies.

        Im sorry but the only thing I can think of is that you manage to get the buttons working so you can enter either of the fastboot or recovery modes.

  4. Ian says:

    I did everything right and it installed successfully but it just boots into recovery mode.

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