How to Install and Use WhatWeb on Kali Linux (Step-by-Step)

WhatWeb on Kali Linux is often one of the first tools security professionals turn to when they want to understand what a website is really made of. Information is the foundation of any assessment the more a site unintentionally reveals, the easier it becomes to see where its weak points might be. That’s why penetration testers rely on tools that can quickly uncover the technologies, frameworks, and small details running behind a webpage.

If you’re planning to try WhatWeb yourself, setting it up on Kali Linux only takes a moment. The process is straightforward, and once it’s running, you’ll have a simple way to check what a website exposes beneath the surface.

And for anyone who prefers doing this kind of testing on a separate machine instead of their own system, Eldernode has a few budget-friendly Linux VPS options that work well for that purpose.

What is Whatweb?

WhatWeb is a free, open-source web scanner written in Ruby. It fingerprints websites and helps you detect the technologies running behind them such as content management systems, blogging platforms, analytics tools, JavaScript libraries, web servers, and even some embedded devices.

During a scan, WhatWeb can also reveal things like email addresses, account IDs, web frameworks, SQL error messages, and other technical details that might be useful in a security assessment. It’s commonly used on Linux systems, especially Kali Linux, as a quick way to profile a target website.

Installing Whatweb on Kali Linux 

In this section, we will explain how to install Whatweb on Kali Linux. Just follow the steps below and enter the required commands.

First, update the system packages with the following command:

sudo apt update

Now you can install Whatweb scanner tool using the following command:

sudo apt install whatweb

The installation process is finished, let’s go to the next section.

How to Use Whatweb on Kali Linux

In this step, you will learn how to use whatweb on Kali Linux. The Whatweb usage example command is as follows:

whatweb -v -a 3 IP_Address

If you want to identify those used by websites, run the following command:

whatweb -h

How to Uninstall Whatweb on Kali Linux

If you want to remove whatweb scanner tool from your Kali Linux, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get remove whatweb

To remove whatweb configuration, data and all of its dependencies, just run the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge whatweb

That’s it! You have successfully installed Whatweb on Kali Linux.

Conclusion

WhatWeb is one of those simple tools that quietly does a lot of heavy lifting. It gives you a quick look at the technologies and components running behind a website, and that small snapshot often says more than you expect. Throughout this guide, we walked through installing and using WhatWeb on Kali Linux so you can try it out in your own testing environment without any hassle.

If you run into something unexpected or have a tip to share from your own experience, feel free to drop it in the comments conversations like that usually help everyone.

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Kali Linux Tutorials