Kali linux failed after upgrade

My Kali stopped working after upgrade. I run it in recovery mode, and it seems that basic communication (http) packages have some problem.

When I try wget or curl I get:

relocation error /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnutls.so.30: symbol _idn2_punycode_decode version IDN2_0.0.0 not defined in file libidn2.so.0 with link time reference

I guess that some files are corrupted but cannot find a way to detect all the corrupted, and to replace them. Of course, I need to do it manually (e.g., from USB), as I can't use wget and similar commands.

Thanks!

Gari BN

Posted 2019-08-01T15:44:42.350

Reputation: 201

My Kali Linux has the same exact issue. Happened after I updated the Metasploit Framework. Hopefully someone will has a solution or knows how to fix this. – Aura – 2019-08-01T20:55:26.293

@Aura I managed to fix it! see my answer below. – Gari BN – 2019-08-01T22:15:13.207

Answers

I succeeded to fix it:

From another computer I downloaded the libidn2.so.0 deb file and moved it to USB.
In recovery-mode, I succeeded to offline replace it with my file. Now wget, curl and the other networking command work!
I ran update and upgrade successfully and installed gnome. (after the upgrade, I had to re-install again libidn2.so.0).
Reboot and login page pops up (although it took longer than I used to).

Hope it helps!

Gari BN

Posted 2019-08-01T15:44:42.350

Reputation: 201

Awesome! I'll give this a try tomorrow and let you know how it went. – Aura – 2019-08-02T01:59:11.600

I had this happen after some upgrades on my Powerbook (which is running Debian). I cross compiled gnutls and libidn for it and that fixed it here (for now). – Wyatt8740 – 2019-08-08T16:26:30.587

Ok here is the fix that worked for me:

My box was running live when I did this.

First download deb to another host:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libi/libidn2/libidn2-0_2.0.5-1_amd64.deb

Then SCP that up to the box that is having issues.

Once the file is up on the box. Run this:

sudo dpkg -i /tmp/libidn2-0_2.0.5-1_amd64.deb

This was a downgrade for me and then I was able to update (apt-get) without issue.

At this point I do not know of any issues this will cause. Use at your own risk.

Stigs

Posted 2019-08-01T15:44:42.350

Reputation: 81

Thank you for the tip. I have been struggling with this for the past 2 days. – Vijay Kumar – 2019-08-22T18:36:33.513

Also affects Ubuntu 18.04 using ondrej/php repository

Workaround is to downgrade libidn2-0 and mark the package as held.

Package source is https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/libidn2-0

wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/libi/libidn2/libidn2-0_2.0.4-1.1build2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libidn2-0_2.0.4-1.1build2_amd64.deb
sudo apt-mark hold libidn2-0

For cross reference the issue in ondrej https://github.com/oerdnj/deb.sury.org/issues/1247

– so_ – 2019-09-10T23:23:41.600

This error compromises almost everything. Thank you master – ajcg – 2019-09-11T00:40:34.200