msfvenom does nothing?

[Ky6000]

I've been through countless videos and forum posts, however no one seems to be having my problem. Metasploit is installed correctly (I think) and using "msfconsole" works fine, but when I went to make my own payload, anything to do with "msfvenom" does nothing. typing msfvenom into the terminal does nothing, however when a payload is created, even with no terminal output a program (always 0 bytes) is created. Where did I go wrong? I'm using the terminal as root and metasploit is installed on a virtual OS Ubuntu.

I posted this on reddit but had a feeling no one would see it.

Thanks for any help.

[digininja]

Define does nothing, do you get any output, an error message, an instant return with no output or what?

[Ky6000]

No output, it just instantly takes me to the next line.

[digininja]

Have you tried -h or similar to get the help info?

[Ky6000]

Yep, nothing. And using msfconsole brings up the banner and all commands in that work fine just like in all the videos, but msfvenom does nothing. However the terminal doesn't say that its not a command, it just doesn't do anything.

[digininja]

Sounds like it is broken to me.

use

which msfvenom

to find out where it is installed then have a look at the file to get more info

file msfvenom

and

ls -l msfvenom

See what they say

[Ky6]

Thanks for the reply, however I can only make 3 posts on the first day and really didn't want to wait till tonight... is that against the rules?

Well the msfvenom at "usr/local/bin" seems normal (these scripts have no file type?) with a symbolic link to "/opt/metasploit/app", which in turn has another symbolic link to "opt/metasploit/run.sh". Using "ls -l msfvenom" on the two script locations give similar a output that looks like "lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Feb 20 16:12 msfvenom -> /opt/metasploit/app/msfvenom". The only different being the symbolic link location. Everything seems to be in working order, perhaps the script in "usr/local/bin" had a bad install? Both files are not corrupt. I haven't activated the community edition yet, is that the problem?

[digininja]

What is it you've got installed as there is no activation for Metasploit.

[Ky6]

I have the community version of metasploit, but on the website it says it needs a community license which I don't have yet, but that doesn't explain why msfvenom does nothing in the console, as I don't think the license is too important.

[digininja]

For a quick fix, install the framework and try that, see if Venom works in there.

[Ky6]

The metasploit framework? I completely reinstalled it, firewall disabled and no anti-virus installed... Still the same issue. msfconsole works fine, but msfvenom does nothing... its like the scripts are empty. Also this is what happens when I try to use msfvenom in the msfconsole, just to clear any confusion: http://postimg.org/image/iyahezven/

[digininja]

The framework edition is the one most people use. Just clone the git repo.

And your screenshot is missing.

[Ky6]

I'm really mad right now... installed the metasploit framework (didn't clone the git repo, just downloaded the latest installer) and msfconsole works like a charm... and msfvenom is still useless. Is Ubuntu the problem? This doesn't make any sense. Also I accidentally but a space on the url at the end.

Thanks for the help

[digininja]

Where are you running Venom from? If you are just running it from the path then you are probably still running the old version.

Clone the repo, go into the directory you cloned it to and run it from there with ./msfvenom to make sure you are definitely running the right one. There will be no symlinks or path problems getting in the way.

[Ky6000]

Well I went ahead and installed the kali linux os, installed the metasploit framework and now it works fine. Didn't think that I was still running the old symlinks... anyway, thanks again for the help.