Installing Poweradmin on Kali Linux

Introduction

Poweradmin is an open source administration application used to manage DNS servers. Kali Linux is a popular pen-testing operating system. In this tutorial, we will walk through the steps of installing Poweradmin on Kali Linux.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure that you have the following:

• Kali Linux installed on your machine
• A web server such as Apache or Nginx installed and running on your machine
• PHP installed on your machine
• MySQL installed on your machine

Step 1: Download Poweradmin

The first step is to download Poweradmin from the official website. You can download the latest stable version from http://www.poweradmin.org/.

Alternatively, you can use the following command to download Poweradmin using wget:

$ wget https://github.com/poweradmin/poweradmin/archive/v$VERSION.tar.gz

Replace $VERSION with the latest version of Poweradmin that you wish to download.

Step 2: Install Poweradmin Dependencies

Make sure that all the required dependencies are installed before proceeding with the installation. You can install them using the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install -y apache2 php7.0 php7.0-mysql mysql-server

Step 3: Extract Poweradmin archive

Next, extract the Poweradmin archive that you downloaded earlier using the following command:

$ tar -xvf poweradmin.tar.gz

Replace poweradmin.tar.gz with the name of the archive that you downloaded.

Step 4: Configure the database

Create a new database, a user, and then grant the user privileges to the database, as shown below:

$ mysql -u root -p
mysql> CREATE DATABASE poweradmin;
mysql> GRANT ALL ON poweradmin.* TO 'poweradminuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit;

Replace password with the password that you want to set for the user.

Step 5: Import the database schema

Next, import the Poweradmin database schema into the database that you created earlier using the following command:

$ mysql -u poweradminuser -p poweradmin < poweradmin/create_tables.sql

Replace poweradminuser with the username that you created earlier.

Step 6: Configure Poweradmin

Now, navigate to the Poweradmin directory and copy the sample configuration file:

$ cd poweradmin-$VERSION/inc/
$ cp config.inc.php.sample config.inc.php

Then, edit the config.inc.php configuration file:

$ nano config.inc.php

Modify the following lines to suit your environment:

$db_host = 'localhost';
$db_user = 'poweradminuser';
$db_pass = 'password';
$db_name = 'poweradmin';

Replace poweradminuser and password with the values you created in step 4.

Step 7: Configure web server

Create a new virtual host configuration file for Poweradmin:

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/poweradmin.conf

Add the following lines to the file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName poweradmin.yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot /path/to/poweradmin
    <Directory /path/to/poweradmin>
        DirectoryIndex index.php
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Replace poweradmin.yourdomain.com with the domain name that you want to use, and /path/to/poweradmin with the path to the Poweradmin directory.

Finally, enable the virtual host:

$ sudo a2ensite poweradmin

Step 8: Restart web server

Restart the Apache service to apply the changes:

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 9: Access Poweradmin web interface

Finally, access the Poweradmin web interface by visiting the domain name that you specified in the virtual host configuration file:

http://poweradmin.yourdomain.com/

You should be able to log in using the default username and password:

• Username: admin
• Password: password

You can change the default username and password by logging in and going to the Users menu. After logging in, you can create DNS zones and manage your DNS server.

Conclusion

Poweradmin is a powerful tool that can be used to manage DNS servers. In this tutorial, we walked through the steps of installing Poweradmin on Kali Linux. You can now manage your DNS server using Poweradmin through a web interface.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!

Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!