Deploy and Host Kali Linux 2026.3 KDE Desktop with Railway

A Kali Linux 2026.3 (kali-rolling) desktop with KDE Plasma that you open in a browser tab. It comes with Firefox, Dolphin and Konsole, Kali's default tool set (kali-linux-default) and the top 10 tools (kali-tools-top10), plus Autopsy, Hydra and the other extras of the linuxserver.io image. A generated password protects it, and your home directory (files, settings, browser profile) lives on a persistent volume.

About Hosting Kali Linux 2026.3 KDE Desktop

A browser desktop needs a display server, a desktop session, a streaming server, a login in front of it, and storage that outlives rebuilds. This community template uses the linuxserver.io image kali-linux (pinned release acb09ade-ls137), which streams the desktop with Selkies over a single HTTPS WebSocket. Railway runs its own init as PID 1, which the image's s6-overlay init refuses to run under, so a small start script brings up the image's own services under s6 supervision instead. nginx requires a login on every page except /healthz. /config (the home directory) is a Railway volume.

Common Use Cases

Work in a full Linux environment from any device with a browser, including managed work laptops
Security training, CTFs and lab work against targets you own or are allowed to test
Open untrusted links or files in a cloud browser instead of on your own computer
A ready Linux environment for training sessions, demos and support work

Dependencies for Kali Linux 2026.3 KDE Desktop Hosting

One service built from a small Dockerfile on top of lscr.io/linuxserver/kali-linux (no database, no external API keys)
A Railway volume mounted at /config for the home directory

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

Service	What runs inside	Volume	Port
Desktop	Wayland (KWin) desktop session, D-Bus, audio, Selkies (loopback only), nginx (login, `/healthz`), all supervised by s6	`/config`	3000 (public HTTPS domain)

Plan: Hobby or Pro only. The image is 4.5 GB compressed, above the Trial and Free image size limit. Measured on Railway: about 0.8 GB of RAM idle with one browser session, peaking at 1.5 GB while the session starts. Give it 2 GB or more, and more for tools such as Burp Suite or Metasploit.

First login

Wait for the deploy to turn healthy (the first build pulls a 4.5 GB image, so allow a few minutes).
Open the public URL. The browser asks for a login.
User kali (or your CUSTOM_USER; letters, digits and . _ @ - only, otherwise it stays kali), password = PASSWORD from the service Variables tab.
The desktop appears and resizes to your browser window. The Selkies side menu has the clipboard box, file upload and download, audio, keyboard and display settings.

Authorized use only

Kali's tools can scan, brute-force and exploit systems. Use them only against systems you own or have written permission to test. Railway's Fair Use Policy and Terms of Service apply to everything that runs in this desktop, and scanning or attacking third-party networks from Railway can get your account suspended. Raw-socket tools that need NET_RAW/NET_ADMIN (for example nmap -sS, packet capture or Wi-Fi tools) may not work in Railway's containers; nmap -sT and HTTP-level tools do.

Security

The desktop never runs without a login. Basic auth is on in nginx at build time, and the service refuses to start if PASSWORD is empty or shorter than 8 characters (use 12 or more).
Only a hash of the password is stored, and the password is removed from the environment before any desktop app starts.
Requests from other websites are refused (Origin check in nginx and Selkies), so a page you visit cannot use your cached login to drive the desktop or upload files.
The Linux user abc has passwordless sudo. Anyone with the password controls the whole container. The image's HARDEN_DESKTOP=true option disables sudo, terminals and the open-with tools for a locked-down desktop.
Browsers keep basic-auth logins until they close. Use a private window on shared computers.

What persists

Everything in /config: documents, ~/Desktop, desktop settings, browser profiles. Packages installed with sudo apt install live in the image and reset on every redeploy. List them in the APT_PACKAGES variable or in ~/.config/railway-desktop/packages (one or more per line) and they are reinstalled in the background after each start (log: /var/log/railway-desktop/pkg-restore.log).

No GPU: software rendering

Railway has no GPUs. The desktop is drawn on the CPU (Mesa's software renderer), and Selkies encodes the video stream on the CPU. Office work, browsing and development tools run well; 3D apps, games and video editing will be slow. A busy screen costs CPU: lower the frame rate in the side menu, or set SELKIES_FRAMERATE, to save CPU.

Audio and clipboard

Sound from desktop apps streams to your browser over the same WebSocket. Browsers only play it after you click in the page once.
Text copy and paste works both ways. Chromium-based browsers ask for clipboard permission. In Firefox and Safari, paste through the clipboard box in the side menu.

Scaling and versions

The desktop is a single-user, volume-backed service: run one replica and scale it vertically. To upgrade, change the FROM line in services/desktop/Dockerfile to a newer release tag with its digest and redeploy. The home directory is kept.

Limits

No Docker inside the desktop (Railway runs no privileged containers), no WebRTC/UDP (the WebSocket stream is used instead), and running apps restart on every redeploy. Railway's app sleeping stops the desktop session as well. Use the desktop for your own work: the Fair Use Policy forbids cryptocurrency mining, torrenting, reselling compute, operating proxies or anonymization services, and abusive bots or scrapers.

Why Deploy Kali Linux 2026.3 KDE Desktop on Railway?

Railway gives the desktop HTTPS, a persistent volume and usage-based billing without any server to manage. You get a Linux desktop at a URL in a few minutes, pay for the RAM and CPU it actually uses, and can resize or redeploy it from the dashboard. This is a community template, not affiliated with linuxserver.io, the Selkies project, the distribution's publishers or Railway.