This article will outline some of the most commonly recommended configurations set to Parrot OS after installation. I will keep updating this article as I find new tools or processes to include in the list.

Display:

Firstly the screen resolution needs to be adjusted to match the current monitor.

Verifying some permissions first:

sudo usermod -aG sudo amgit

Shared Folder Access:

Next is the shared Vbox permissions (making sure we can access the host shared folder): sudo adduser amgit vboxsf

This permissions error won't change until the server is restarted, after the restart, we should have access to the shared folder.

Updating Parrot:

It's important to make sure Parrot is using the correct repositories when updating the OS or download tools, to view the current repositories:

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/parrot.list

Make any required changes and when ready:

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

This may take some time and once it's finished the operating system, tools and applications should all be updated/upgraded.

Tools:

There are a few different useful tools:

TOR Browser: sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher

LinPeas:

git clone https://github.com/carlospolop/privilege-escalation-awesome-scripts-suite.git

LinPeas is a Linux enumeration and local privilege escalation script. Very useful once a remote shell is established.

SecList Installation:

sudo apt install seclists

SecLists is a collection of multiple types of lists used during security assessments. List types include usernames, passwords, URLs, sensitive data grep strings, fuzzing payloads, and many more.

tree -d /usr/share/seclists/
/usr/share/seclists/
├── Discovery
│   ├── DNS
│   ├── Infrastructure
│   ├── SNMP
│   └── Web-Content
│       ├── CMS
│       ├── SVNDigger
│       │   ├── cat
│       │   │   ├── Conf
│       │   │   ├── Database
│       │   │   ├── Language
│       │   │   └── Project
│       │   └── context
│       ├── URLs
│       └── Web-Services
├── Fuzzing
│   └── Polyglots
├── IOCs
├── Miscellaneous
├── Passwords
│   ├── Common-Credentials
│   ├── Cracked-Hashes
│   ├── Default-Credentials
│   ├── Honeypot-Captures
│   ├── Leaked-Databases
│   ├── Malware
│   ├── Permutations
│   ├── Software
│   └── WiFi-WPA
├── Pattern-Matching
├── Payloads
│   ├── Anti-Virus
│   ├── File-Names
│   ├── Images
│   ├── PHPInfo
│   └── Zip-Bombs
├── Usernames
│   ├── Honeypot-Captures
│   └── Names
└── Web-Shells
    ├── FuzzDB
    ├── JSP
    ├── laudanum-0.8
    │   ├── asp
    │   ├── aspx
    │   ├── cfm
    │   ├── jsp
    │   │   └── warfiles
    │   │       ├── META-INF
    │   │       └── WEB-INF
    │   └── php
    ├── PHP
    └── WordPress

53 directories

Install Wine:

Wine is used to execute windows executables on a Linux machine. This will become useful, especially working with HTB challenges.

sudo apt-get install wine

CherryTree:

Cherry Tree is my preferred tool for note-taking, I am trying others at the moment - but I always seem to go back to CherryTree.

sudo apt install cherrytree

Terminator:

Terminator is my preference when it comes to terminals. I find it easier to use, especially with the number of shortcuts and right-click-paste features.

sudo apt install terminator