Kali Linux is a popular security-focused operating system that has many tools which could be used for penetration testing. In the past, I demonstrated how to Run Kali Linux on Android (version 1.0) via the terminal. Now let’s take a look at how to run Kali Linux 2 on Android without root. To do this, we will be using Limbo PC Emulator. It makes use of the SDL library to emulate Kali Linux 2 on Android.
Download ISO
Begin by downloading the Kali Linux 2 ISO. The only version which I was able to get to boot was the Kali Linux 32 bit light.
PC Limbo Emulator
Download PC Limbo Emulator from the play store. Once you open it up, create a new VM. Within the VM, you can specify the amount of RAM and CPU cores that you want to allocate. To be fair, I don’t believe this affects the actual emulation speed at all. It might just be what the OS “thinks” it has available. Go to **CD ROM_ _**and select the Kali Linux ISO you just downloaded. Also, if you wish to actually install Kali Linux, you can create a new virtual hard disk. I am just going to run it in live mode though. Finally, select the CD ROM as the boot device.
Once you are set, you can start up Kali Linux. You might also want to connect a USB OTG cable so that you can use both the mouse and keyboard. Overall, the emulation speed is very slow. It took around 10 minutes until I was able to get to the login screen. Further, I encountered a strange bug after logging in that cause desktop environment to crash. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the patience to try to debug it and wait another 10 minutes to boot, so I left it at that.