It stands for “Advanced Package Tool,” which sounds like a bunch of buzzwords thrown together just to make it sound impressive. But in reality, it’s just a fancy way to manage packages (which are basically collections of files that do something useful) on your system.
Now sources.list. This is the file where APT keeps track of all the different places you can go to get those sweet, sweet packages. It looks like this:
# This script is used to manage packages on a system using APT (Advanced Package Tool)
# APT is a tool used to install, update, and remove software packages on a Linux system
# The following lines specify the Kali Linux official repositories, where packages can be obtained from
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free
deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free
# The "deb" prefix indicates that these are binary packages, while "deb-src" indicates source packages
# The "http://http.kali.org/kali" specifies the location of the repository
# "kali-rolling" is the name of the repository, which contains the latest versions of packages
# "main", "contrib", and "non-free" are the components of the repository, which contain different types of packages
# The following lines specify the Kali Linux security updates repository
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali-latest-security main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali-latest-security main contrib non-free
# These lines are similar to the previous ones, but they specify the security updates repository instead
# This repository contains security updates for packages in the main repository
# These updates are important for maintaining the security of the system
So basically, this tells APT to go to the Kali Linux website and grab all the packages from their “rolling” release (which is like a beta version) as well as any security updates they have available. Pretty simple, right?
Now let’s say you want to install something called “metasploit.” You can do that by running this command:
# This script is used to update and install the "metasploit" package from the Kali Linux website.
# It first updates the list of available packages and then installs the desired package.
# Update the list of available packages
apt-get update
# Install the "metasploit" package
apt-get install metasploit
This will tell APT to go check for any updates (in case there are new packages available) and then install the “metasploit” package. Easy peasy!
But what if you want to remove something? No problem, just run this command:
# This line uses the apt-get command to remove the "metasploit" package from the system.
apt-get remove metasploit
And that’s it! You can also use APT to upgrade all the packages on your system by running “apt-get dist-upgrade,” but be warned this can take a while depending on how many updates are available. And if you ever want to see what packages are currently installed, just run “dpkg –list.”
APT and sources.list made simple for all your hacking needs.