Using the Msfconsole interface

What is the msfconsole?

The msfconsole is probably the most popular interface to the Metasploit Framework (MSF). It provides an “all-in-one” centralized console and allows you efficient access to virtually all of the options available in the MSF. Msfconsole may seem intimidating at first, but once you learn the syntax of the commands you will learn to appreciate the power of utilizing this interface.

Benefits of msfconsole

• It is the only supported way to access most of the features within Metasploit.
• Provides a console-based interface to the framework
• Contains the most features and is the most stable MSF interface
• Full readline support, tabbing, and command completion
• Execution of external commands in msfconsole is possible:

Launching msfconsole

The msfconsole is launched by simply running msfconsole from the command line. msfconsole is located in the /usr/share/metasploit-framework/msfconsole directory.

Start the Kali PostgreSQL Service

Metasploit uses PostgreSQL as its database so it needs to be launched first.

You can verify that PostgreSQL is running by checking the output of ss -ant and making sure that port 5432 is listening.

Initialise the Metasploit PostgreSQL Database

With PostgreSQL up and running, we next need to create and initialize the msf database.

Launch msfconsole in Kali

Now that the PostgreSQL service is up and running and the database is initialized, you can launch msfconsole and verify database connectivity with the db_status command as shown below.