Welcome back my novice hackers!

Recently, I have received numerous questions regarding how to update the msfconsole built into Kali. Until recently that was an easy question to answer. You simply enter “msfupdate” at the command line.

Now, Rapid7–the developers of Metasploit– have changed how we update Metasploit when it is built into an operating system like Kali. Remember, if you only need to add a new module, you can find my tutorial on adding a module here, but if you want to update the framework and get all the new modules this is how you do it now.

Before we start, let’s start the msfconsole and note the version and number of modules.

As you can see in the screenshot above, this is metasploit console version 4.14.5 and there are 1635 exploits.

Step #1: The Old Way

Until recently, we could simply update the Metasploit console (msfconsole) by entering;

kali > msfupdate

As you can see above, Metasploit now responds that when Metasploit is “part of an operating system” such as Kali, we need to use the apt package manager.

Step #2: APT Package Manager Update

As the message from Metasploit makes clear, we need to use the APT package manager update and then install the framework anew.

kali > apt update ; apt install metasploit-framework

As you can see above, we installed a brand new version of the Metasploit Framework from the repository.

Step #3: Verifying the Update

Now after updating, when we start the Metasploit console (msfconsole), we can now see that not only has the console been updated to version 4.17.5, but all of the new modules have been added as well. As you can see there are now 1801 exploit modules.

kali> msfconsole

Remember, not all Metasploit modules are included in Metasploit’s update, only those developed and approved by Rapid7. If you have developed a new module or found one of github or other places, you will need to add them manually.

Want to learn more about this powerful hacking/pentesting framework? You can purchase Metasploit Basics for Hackers videos in our online store or attend our Metasploit Basics for Hackers course!