Re: [qubes-users] Qubes - Critique (long)

2019-03-19 Thread John Goold
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On 3/18/19 10:40 PM, jrsmi...@gmail.com wrote:
> “The install appeared successful. I was able to add Chromium to an
> appVM. When I started the appVM and launched Chromium from the
> menu... nothing! No window, no error message. I tried a number of
> times (the reason for just re-trying will be mentioned below). ”
> 
> This stood out for me and was not addressed by others, so I’ll ask
> the obvious question. Did you install the software in the appVM as
> you stated or did you install in the template VM the appVM was
> based on?  For most installed software, it needs to be installed in
> the Template VM for it to be there after the appVM is bounced.
> Installing in the appVM causes the install to be lost on the next
> reboot of that appVM since it gets its installed software from the
> Template. I usually clone the distro templates and install my stuff
> there and then create appVMs with my copies. That way I can be sure
> that the distro templates remain upgradable via QM.
> 
In the template. Used the Qubes Manager to "add" Chromium to the
appVM's menu.
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Re: [qubes-users] Qubes - Critique (long)

2019-03-16 Thread John Goold
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On 3/16/19 6:35 PM, js...@bitmessage.ch wrote:
> 
>> [Question] So, what do other Qubes users do to protect their
>> families in case they die/get killed, get imprisoned, go
>> missing?
> 
> In addition to (very) occasional full backups using default qubes
> tools, i also backup important data to an external hard drive with
> a luks encrypted partition, so it can be easily accessed outside of
> qubes if needed.
> 
But that still needs someone (spouse, child, executor of your estate) to
have access to a key phrase (if that is the right term). What about
bank account numbers, etc. If you use KeePassX 2 or similar, what about
access to it?

Do you have the necessary passwords written down with instructions,
sealed in an envelope and stored in a safety deposit box? Something
else?

We tend to keep more and more financial, legal and medical information
on our personal computers rather than keeping paper copies (I am an old
guy but my wife and I keep everything in electronic form unless
required by law to keep a paper copy -- so I expect the "younger" crowd
probably tends to do so as well).

We keep at least two backups of such data -- copies to our shared file
server and backups to external drives.

One of our children has the master password to our password vaults --
there is a non-negligible possibility that both of us could be badly
hurt (or killed) in the same accident (e.g. plane or car crash).

Anyway, with our emphasis on Qubes and security, I was curious about
this other aspect of people's affairs. Do you have all your important
data locked down in Qubes so *only* you can get at it?

John
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Re: [qubes-users] Qubes - Critique (long)

2019-03-16 Thread John Goold
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On 3/16/19 7:42 AM, Mike Keehan wrote:

> 
> As for Flash, it is a pain.  Our BBC still uses it extensively, so
> I have to manually download it occasionally and copy the library
> file into the appVMs .mozilla directory when necessary.
> 
Hi Mike,

What a coincidence!  I live in Canada, but use the BBC website on a
daily basis for news and interesting articles. It is really the
only reason I need Flash.

Cheers,
John
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[qubes-users] Qubes - Critique (long)

2019-03-15 Thread John Goold
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*A Critique of Qubes*

Before discussing Qubes, I want to give you a bit of background about
me. I do not want to tell my life-story, I doubt anyone is interested.
However, I want you to know "where I am coming from" and what I want
from Qubes. I am keeping in mind that what I want is just that and
Qubes may not be intended to satisfy, or interest in satisfying my
wants and needs -- that is, I may simply be part of the wrong
demographic.

* Retired roughly 2 decades
* 73 years old
* Degree in Computer Science
* Started out programming mainframes in Assembly Language (machine
  code)
* Later, large-scale software development (various roles) -- R & D,
  telecoms and mission-critical apps (those involved in health-care are
  regulated)
* Proprietary H/W and OSes, then various Unixes.

I am not paranoid over privacy and security, but I recognize there are
many individuals who, rightfully, fear for their privacy and anonymity
- -- their livelihood and even their lives may depend on it.

Wants:

* Reliability -- do not fail on me or, if something goes wrong, fail
  gracefully.
* Reasonable security -- more than is provided by the more standard
  Linux distributions (I am a fan of Linux Mint).
* Reasonable privacy (I hope that is not an oxymoron); though perhaps
  it is too late in the game for me (though I have never been a fan of
  social media, or anything Google)
* No need to spend large amounts of time tinkering with my basic
  personal computer setup.
* Ease of use and administration, including software installation.
* GUI for virtually everything unless there is a really, really, really
  good reason to use a CLI. Do not get me wrong, I am comfortable with
  CLI's, but I do not want to spend my time researching various Linux
  administration tools. Consider me lazy if you wish.
* No need to build my own tools to use Qubes (I do some website and
  server- side development to keep the neurons firing -- I can do all
  the programming I want in that environment).

Basically, my personal computer(s) is a tool. If I write some software
on it, that software will be for some other purpose and not to
complement the OS.

- -

Critique:

I started using Qubes for my main computer about two months ago. I had
previously experimented with release 3.2 and 4.0 on my HP laptop and
ran into various problems -- discussed by many users ad nausium in
qubes-users. I got a nice little desktop computer for Christmas (from
my wife :-) -- an Intel NUC7i7 (32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD).

So I started from the beginning. Installing Qubes 4.0.1 was relatively
straightforward, although it did require researching the use of a USB
mouse and keyboard.

Basic configuration was no worse than any Linux distribution I have
played with. Software installation was not as straightforward. I was
forced into using the CLI (I do have two proprietary programs: VueScan
and Bcompare). Installing other software can be problematic. I
installed Chromium. The install appeared successful. I was able to add
Chromium to an appVM. When I started the appVM and launched Chromium
from the menu... nothing! No window, no error message. I tried a number
of times (the reason for just re-trying will be mentioned below).

Issues...

* When launching a program from the Qubes menu, particularly if the
  target   appVM has to be started, the program often fails to be
  launched. This happens very frequently with the Text Editor.

  This is annoying as one waits a bit in case one is simply being
  impatient, or at least I do, so as not to launch two copies of the
  program by accident.

* When a USB device is attached to an appVM, there is an appropriate
  notification. When it is detached, there is a notification that the
  device is being detached, but no notification to indicate that it has
  been successfully detached  so how long should one wait before
  unplugging it?

* Ignoring whonix (I do not use it... yet), there are two template VMs
  in the vanilla Qubes 4.0.1 installation: Fedora and Debian. However,
  they have not been treated equally, with Debian being the loser. The
  Qubes documentation indicates that Fedora was favoured for security
  reasons.

  Since I had been using Linux distributions based, directly or
  indirectly, on Debian, when I first set up Qubes, I created my appVMs
  based on Debian. That  was painful as I then had to install a lot of
  basic software.

  When I re-read the documentation, I realized the security reasons,
  so I switched all my appVMs (except one!) back to Fedora. It was not
  painful, but I would have rather have spent the time doing something
  else.

  The kicker came when Firefox stopped playing Flash content in my
  untrusted appVM, complaining that I needed an up to date version of
  Flash. I installed the most recent version, but that did not solve
  the problem. The problem is/ was something to do with Fedora

Re: [qubes-users] Re: thunderbird address book corrupted

2019-03-01 Thread John Goold
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On 2/28/19 12:39 PM, Jon deps wrote:
> On 2/25/19 7:07 AM, Foppe de Haan wrote:
>> On Sunday, February 24, 2019 at 10:04:30 PM UTC+1, Jon deps
>> wrote:
>>> Hello, I realize it's not exactly a qubes thing. but, does
>>> anybody else unable to save any new entries in thunderbird 
>>> address book
>> 
>> try updating tb, looks like it's a bug in 60.5.
>> 
> 
> thanks, well I just use whatever Fedora-29  provides which at the
> moment is 60.5.1
> 
> where did you see the bug report ?
> 
> it seems to have been this way for many months,  can't create new 
> contact, can add any new info to existing entries,  I tried
> removing the .mab  files  in .thunderbird and making a new "book"
> but still can't add any entries ...
> 

I resolved the problem using the Thunderbird CardBook plug-in. Follow
the installation instructions as they provide useful information about
switching from the built-in address book.

It is more standards compliant (easier import/export options) and the
UI is better (in my opinion). You can try it for a while before
committing to CardBook (I only took a couple of days; my wife took a
couple of weeks).

Cheers,
John
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[qubes-users] why mail-list?

2019-02-25 Thread John Goold
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On 2/25/19 2:44 PM, taii...@gmx.com wrote:
> If you are not smart enough to use a mailinglist you are not smart 
> enough to use linux.
> 
> Catering to the lowest common denominator is an impossible task 
> that shouldn't be tried as it always comes at the expense of 
> everyone else.
> 
> ML's are the most secure and best method of communication even 
> better if they aren't hosted by the evil spyware google.
> 
> I provide many of the answers here and I refuse to use reddit or 
> anything else that requires javascript or what not - reddit also 
> engages in censorship and the owners stealth-edit the posts of 
> others and endorse politically motivated moderation tactics. Yet 
> another "used to be cool" type of place now played out and all the 
> original users have migrated to other places like voat where
> speech is still free.
> 

This reply is not aimed at the Taiidan, it is a disagreement with all
people who make, what on the surface are logical arguments without
thinking through the logic carefully.

I get frustrated when people use specious arguments to make a point.
Any argument of the form "If you are not smart enough to  you are
not smart enough to " is generally wrong. A simple example of the
lack of implication is "If you are not smart enough to use a
sophisticated camera, you are not smart enough to write sophisticated
programs."

Also being smart enough to do something does not equate to wanting to do
that something.

Making the leap to "catering to the lowest common denominator" is simply
insulting. I can use mailing lists, but I prefer, if possible, not
to do so. qubes-users is, in fact, the only mailing list I use.
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Re: [qubes-users] not enough memory to start domain "xyz"

2019-02-16 Thread John Goold
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On 2/16/19 11:56 AM, evo wrote:
> By the way, how can i check up how much RAM i have in the whole 
> laptop? (I forgot it :D )

Surely if you go into BIOS set-up during power-up, you can see how
much RAM the computer has.

- --
John
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Re: [qubes-users] Re: why mail-list?

2019-02-06 Thread John Goold
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On 2/6/19 1:52 PM, kit...@tutanota.com wrote:
> Yeah, good buddy, we are all making the same assumptions.  Knowing
> about the extent the Five Eyes will go to gather your personal
> information makes two points; one is that if they do it, they must
> have a right to do it, and two, because they are, we must fight
> against it 24/7.  You are very wise in not keeping records.  I
> couldn't agree more.
> 
> So then I must ask you, how do you feel about your name being kept,
> as part of your international dossier, associated with the mailing
> list?
> 

Actually, I do not mind people knowing my name or roughly where I live
(Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada). I do not mind people knowing I am
a 73-year old male.

What does bother me is a concept I came across, decades ago when I
first starting working on mainframe computers and before The Internet
was publicly accessible. It was the subject of a book called
"Databanks in a Free Society" (I remember the title, but not the name
of the author).

Privacy in my Grandparents age (possibly your Great-Grandparents) was
not ensured because of the lack of access to information. One could
travel to a person's city and look up information about who owned what
property and what price they bought it for, search the registry of
births and deaths, etc. and eventually, often at great cost, put
together a pretty detailed dossier on a person. Part of that was
because it required a lot of investigation — it might even be
difficult to determine where a person was born (not just the city, but
even the state or country).

That great cost gave people a degree of privacy, as did the difficulty
of confirming or disproving a random individual's identity.

Then, starting around 1948, computers were developed enough and made
available to anyone with the money to buy one (i.e. large enough
businesses like insurance companies, large banks,... that could afford
a mainframe computer and the facilities to house it). And, of course,
governments started to store records on computer media (often reels of
tape).

The premise of the book was that it was "now" possible for large
corporations and, especially the various divisions of a government, to
exchange, correlate, merge and massage disparate lots of information
and build up dossiers on people cheaply enough to make it practical to
do so. So, how would those "Databanks" be used in "a Free Society"?
What about an individual's right to privacy?

Of course, we are well past that stage. Information on people is
almost trivially gathered, correlated and massaged. Because of that,
our expectation of privacy (and anonymity) has been shattered.

We can only maintain a fraction of the privacy that my grandparents
had. And, it has become harder for individuals to maintain even a
modicum of privacy, never mind "live off the grid".

Finally, to answer your question: I do not mind my name being
associated with this mailing list.

What I do worry about is my identity being "stolen"; that is, someone
(or some people) being able to impersonate me in a convincing way. I
worry about people being able to access my bank accounts fraudulently
or incur debts that appear to be my debts. About someone destroying or
stealing records I have on my computer that, once upon a time, were
paper records...

Does sharing my name and a few bits of personal information make it
easier for someone to do the above? Probably. But I do not want to
live as a recluse.
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Re: [qubes-users] Re: why mail-list?

2019-02-06 Thread John Goold
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On 2/6/19 10:36 AM, unman wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 06, 2019 at 10:15:54AM -0600, John Goold wrote: On
> 2/6/19 1:12 AM, 'awokd' via qubes-users wrote:
>>>> kitchm via Forum:
>>>> 
> ...
>>>>> It is currently illegal by federal law to clear your
>>>>> browser history.
>>>> 
>>>> Cite?
> 
> What one does with one's browser history, even assuming one's
> browser has a browser history, is clearly not governed by law,
> except perhaps in countries like China and Russion.
> 
> Actually, it may be governed by law in the US, but not in Russia. 
> The  FBI have interpreted Sarbanes-Oxley as creating a felony
> offence where one deletes browser history where there was 
> reasonable expectation of investigation. It has been used against
> Matanov, a friend of the Boston bombers, and David Kernell, who
> hacked Sarah Palin's email. The EFF have highlighted this
> interpretation of Sarbanes Oxley as egregious, but no doubt the
> authorities deem it necessary.
> 
> Note that it is NOT illegal in the US to clear your browser
> history: but it may prove a felony offence to do so. In the two
> cases cited there were reasonable grounds to suppose that a federal
> investigation would take place.
> 

I think it should go without saying that anyone that violates a court
order issued against them is committing an offense.

Hmmm... So, in the U.S., if you are in a position that there was "a
reasonable expectation of investigation", any attempt to maintain your
privacy may be construed (at least by the FBI) to be a felony offence?
 Wow! Egregious seems to be an understatement.

It seems a bit surreal. A person was not expecting to be the target of
a government/justice system investigation, but someone or some group
say the person should have expected to be investigated... I can see
this happening in a non-democratic regime, but it seems unreal in a
nation professing to be at the forefront of democracy.

Anyway, I do not have to worry about this as I do not allow my browser
to keep track of my browsing history (unless the browser is doing so
surreptitiously). So I have no browser history to delete. However, I
suppose if I became the subject of an investigation, any of my
attempts (all mild) to maintain my privacy would be interpreted as
nefarious.

Anyway, as you implied, I was making assumptions based on my
expectations of living in a democracy.

It's an interesting discussion.
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Re: [qubes-users] Re: why mail-list?

2019-02-06 Thread John Goold
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

On 2/6/19 1:12 AM, 'awokd' via qubes-users wrote:
> kitchm via Forum:
> 
...
>> It is currently illegal by federal law to clear your browser 
>> history.
> 
> Cite?

What one does with one's browser history, even assuming one's browser
has a browser history, is clearly not governed by law, except perhaps
in countries like China and Russion.
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[qubes-users] Re: diff files across appvms

2019-01-30 Thread John Goold
On Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 3:23:54 PM UTC-6, john.e...@gmail.com wrote:
> Is it possible to compare (diff) files across appvms. Or (and), is it 
> possible to pass arguments to an appvm through a dom0 terminal. 
> 
> Basically, I want to check if a Keepassxc file in my vault is different than 
> a Keepassxc file in my appvm. 
> 
> Thanks for any ideas.
> 
> John

Would it not be simpler, and safer, to create the hash in your vault VM and 
then copy it to the global clipboard. Then switch to your appVM, open gedit (or 
editor of your choice) and paste the hash there.

Finally create the hash in your appVM and compare the two.

That is the basic method I have been using to compare things across VMs. In 
particular, generate whatever you need in the more secure VM and pass the 
result to the less secure VM for the comparison step.

I avoid doing anything except VM management in dom0. I think that is the way 
one is supposed to use Qubes.

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[qubes-users] Re: automatic start dropbox in VM

2019-01-30 Thread John Goold
On Sunday, September 21, 2014 at 1:49:05 PM UTC-5, Jos den Bekker wrote:
> I would like to have dropbox start automatically when I start my work VM. How 
> best do I do that? Install a new service? Or is there a startup script to 
> which I can add the appropriate command?
> Thanks for any feedback.

I simply put a symbolic link to dropbox.desktop in ~/.config/autostart

Works perfectly. I also have links to slack.desktop and thunderbird.desktop.

The .desktop files are located in /usr/share/applications/

Cheers,
John

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[qubes-users] Re: Cannot add new user to Thunderbird address book

2019-01-28 Thread John Goold
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

On 1/25/19 2:52 PM, John Goold wrote:
> There is only one issue in my complete transition to a Qubes
> system. This is the first.
> 
> When I attempt to add a "New Contact" to Thunderbird's address
> book, the "OK" button will change to show it is selected, but does
> not do anything. The same happens when I attempt to update an
> existing contact.
> 
> Qubes 4.0.1; Thunderbird 60.4.0 (64-bit)
> 
> Note: My migration involved copying
> ~/.thunderbird//abook.mab from my laptop and replacing the
> one in my "personal" qube. I checked its permissions and it is
> writable.
> 
> All my existing contacts show up and are usable. I am at a bit of a
> loss .
> 
> 

After wasting too much time trying to work out where the problem was
(it does not seem to make any sense), I installed the "Card Book"
add-on. It seems to work flawlessly (I have only been using it for a
couple of days) and has a bit nicer user interface.

John
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[qubes-users] Cannot add new user to Thunderbird address book

2019-01-25 Thread John Goold
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

There is only one issue in my complete transition to a Qubes system.
This is the first.

When I attempt to add a "New Contact" to Thunderbird's address book,
the "OK" button will change to show it is selected, but does not do
anything. The same happens when I attempt to update an existing contact.

Qubes 4.0.1; Thunderbird 60.4.0 (64-bit)

Note: My migration involved copying ~/.thunderbird//abook.mab
from my laptop and replacing the one in my "personal" qube. I checked
its permissions and it is writable.

All my existing contacts show up and are usable. I am at a bit of a loss
.

- --
John
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[qubes-users] Re: vault color (black?) & window decorations

2019-01-23 Thread John Goold
On Monday, October 15, 2018 at 7:38:56 AM UTC-5, Brendan Hoar wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> Regarding the default R4 color scheme...
> 
> ...does anyone else find that the default color for vault (black?) makes it 
> nearly impossible to see the window titles and/or windows controls (close, 
> maximize, minimize)? 
> 
> Why does that color scheme set the window title (and controls) to dark 
> text/controls on a dark background?
> 
> Thanks,
> Brendan

Yes, it makes it nearly impossible to see the window titles, etc.; however:

* Similar to others, I simply used a different colour for qubes that were 
assigned black (I had purple unused, so I chose it). I haven't changed all of 
them yet, but…

* The window with the focus is highlit in the panel at the top of the screen. 
Since it only uses the appVM's assigned colour for the icon, the title is easy 
to read. A window that does not have the focus, including ones assigned black, 
are readable (though the title is a mid-grey, so not a strong contrast).

* The window with the focus can be minimized either by pressing Alt+F9 or by 
clicking on its tab in the panel at the top of the screen.

It might be annoying, but in my opinion, it is a long way from being a 
show-stopper.

Cheers

*

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[qubes-users] Re: Firefox Account SyncVM

2019-01-23 Thread John Goold
On Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 12:20:32 PM UTC-6, R A F wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I'm trying to find a way to sync firefox bookmarks but I do not want to use 
> firefox account. So my question to all of you is:
> Does anyone knows if there is a possible way to create local account that 
> will be hosted on standalone VM so I could connect all Firefox Apps to 
> connect to that source ans sync bookmarks, plugins, etc. The whole point here 
> is to keep all bookmarks in safe place that same way some people keep their 
> passwords keys etc.
> Maybe if there is no such a solution someone could start new project? I would 
> do that myself, but currently do not have advanced coding skills :-(
> 
> Thanks for all replays 
> BR
> Raf

After re-reading the thread, I realized I was over simplifying your question — 
sorry.

However, after reading your original question more carefully, I am left 
wondering what exactly it is you wish to accomplish (again, sorry if I am being 
dim-witted).

It sounds like you are discussing a single computer running Qubes. It is not 
clear to me whether you want to synchronize bookmarks among instances of 
Firefox running on different appVMs (doing so would appear to compromise 
security as discussed elsewhere) or whether you just want to be able to back-up 
your bookmarks (possibly from multiple appVMs).

Having just recently made the transition to Qubes, I had to migrate my data 
which included my bookmarks. I did not use Firefox's Sync., to do this, but 
simply backed up my bookmarks from my laptop computer. I then transferred the 
backup to my new desktop, Qubes computer. I copied them to the appVMs that I 
would be running Firefox on. After restoring the bookmarks, I deleted any 
non-relevant bookmarks from each appVM. For example, I deleted all but the 
banking/financial bookmarks from the "finances" appVM (and deleted those from 
every other appVM).

I also made sure that remembering history, passwords, etc., was turned off for 
Firefox on every appVM. Also, which probably goes without saying, I turned off 
all reporting back to Mozilla.

I have also decided on my backup strategy being to use Qubes backup to backup 
VMs (including template VMs) to an external USB drive (accepting there may be 
some slight USB-related exposure).

So, the bottom line is, what do you really want to do?

If it is just back-ups, then use either Firefox's bookmarks backup/restore or 
backup the relevant Qubes (or both).

If you really want to synchronize bookmarks among your appVMs, I think you 
would be needlessly jeopardizing your security with no real gain. Personally I 
would recommend against doing this.

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Re: [qubes-users] Firefox Account SyncVM

2019-01-22 Thread John Goold
On Monday, January 21, 2019 at 11:57:26 AM UTC-6, R A F wrote:
> I understand your point here but what if I simply do not want to sync my 
> bookmarks, history etc with the cloud. What if I do not want to share those 
> bookmarks between AppVMs. But what if I need to sync this offline inside 
> AppVM that I use in specific domain? The problem here is that in many cases 
> users are forgetting to backup their goodies and not everyone want to sync 
> all this with cloud account. I'm not expert in that area and trying to find 
> out if anyone know it this type of sync is even possible.
> 
> Thanks Guys.
> Raf

You could set up a local file server of your own, such as “ownCloud” 
https://owncloud.org/

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Re: [qubes-users] Firefox Account SyncVM

2019-01-22 Thread John Goold
On Monday, January 21, 2019 at 11:57:26 AM UTC-6, R A F wrote:
> I understand your point here but what if I simply do not want to sync my 
> bookmarks, history etc with the cloud. What if I do not want to share those 
> bookmarks between AppVMs. But what if I need to sync this offline inside 
> AppVM that I use in specific domain? The problem here is that in many cases 
> users are forgetting to backup their goodies and not everyone want to sync 
> all this with cloud account. I'm not expert in that area and trying to find 
> out if anyone know it this type of sync is even possible.
> 
> Thanks Guys.
> Raf

If you are using Firefox synchronization, then you can selectively 
enable/disable sync., in each qube. So disable (or do not enable it in the 
first place) in all of your domains EXCEPT the one and only one you want to use 
it in for "backup".  Oh, and ONLY set Firefox to synchronize bookmarks (no 
history, passwords, etc.).

Particularly if you are treating that domain as untrusted, I do not see what 
the problem is. Or am I missing the point of your wanting to synchronize 
bookmarks in that one domain?

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[qubes-users] Re: USB Keyboard

2019-01-20 Thread John Goold
On Sunday, January 20, 2019 at 4:16:12 PM UTC-6, kit...@tutanota.com wrote:
> Upon reading the system requirements and recommendations, I read the 
> statement "A non-USB keyboard or multiple USB controllers".  Please explain 
> the reasoning there.  Thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
>  Securely sent with Tutanota. Get your own encrypted, ad-free mailbox: 
> 
>  https://tutanota.com

>From a newbie to Qubes: There are security issues with USB devices. Normally 
>the keyboard (and mouse) will be attached to dom0 and then shared among the 
>various VMs as they are part of the desktop environment. Since any USB device 
>on the same USB controller can cause a problem, using a USB keyboard is not 
>truly safe. If you actually have multiple USB controllers (I do not), then you 
>can dedicate one USB controller to the keyboard and mouse and it is less of a 
>problem.

Basically, individual devices on a single USB controller cannot be securely 
isolated from each other. …At least that is my understanding.

There are also other issues. I am aware of them as I am using a desktop 
computer (Intel NUC7i7BNH) and USB is the only way to attach a keyboard (and 
mouse); though, in theory, I could attach a Bluetooth keyboard (as I have with 
my laptop computer running straight Linux Mint).

If you are going to attempt using a USB keyboard, I recommend searching the 
threads, PAYING PARTICULAR attention to the issues involving encrypting your 
disk.

By the way, just to make you aware, the posting guidelines indicate one should 
(must?) not include advertising in one's signature.

Cheers and good luck.

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[qubes-users] Re: Enigmail - Split-GPG keyring access problem

2019-01-20 Thread John Goold
On Sunday, January 20, 2019 at 9:45:35 AM UTC-6, Mathew wrote:
> Le samedi 19 janvier 2019 21:33:07 UTC+1, John Goold a écrit :
> > Once I had Qubes up and running with Thunderbird and enough basics to be 
> > able, more or less, use it as my main computing platform, I setup Split GPG 
> > and installed the Enigmail extension. At first it appeared to work fine as 
> > I was able to send signed email messages with my public key attached. 
> > However, it soon stopped working. I am now trying to resolve this issue.
> > 
> > So far I have been unsuccessful, so am appealing for assistance/pointers. 
> > That means providing rather a lot of information, but if you would bear 
> > with me, I would be grateful. By the way, Screenshot in an appVM 
> > (Fedora-29) just gives me a white rectangle when I view the saved image :-( 
> >  That is why I have typed in almost all the information below (in most 
> > cases I could not use copy-and-paste).
> > 
> > System
> > 
> > Qubes R4.0.1 with all updates applied.
> > Thunderbird 60.3.1
> > All Split-GPG parts installed (or it would not have worked in the first 
> > place)
> > 
> > The Problem
> > 
> > When I click Ctrl+Enter (to send the message), I get a pop up dialog 
> > request from the vault appVM, "Do you allow VM 'personal' to access your 
> > GPG keys..." I click "Yes" and there is a momentary notification that the 
> > keyring is being accessed (is there any way to make the notification 
> > persist longer than the 1 or 2 seconds it pops up for as it is almost 
> > impossible to both notice it and actually read it?). As best I could read 
> > it, it said: "Keyring access from domain personal".
> > 
> > Then the following dialog box pops up:
> > 
> > [personal] Enigmail Information
> > 
> > Send operation aborted.
> > 
> > The configured key ID "0x6EC..." cannot be found on your keyring.
> > 
> > 
> > Configuration
> > 
> > Here are some configuration files:
> > 
> > [dom0] /etc/qubes-rpc/policy/qubes.Gpg  (why the capital G?)
> > 
> > personal vault allow
> > $anyvm  $anyvm  ask
> > 
> > 
> > [personal] /tw/config/gpg-split-domain
> > 
> > vault
> > 
> > 
> > [vault] ~/.bash_profile
> > 
> > # .bash_profile
> > 
> > # Get the aliases and functions
> > if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
> > . ~/.bashrc
> > fi
> > 
> > # User specific environment and startup programs
> > QUBES_GPG_AUTOACCEPT=86400
> > 
> > 
> > Note: The above appears to have no effect on the request for permission 
> > which still states the default 300 seconds (and appears to honour the 300 
> > seconds).
> > 
> > Other Debugging
> > 
> > [vault] terminal
> > 
> > 
> > [user@vault ~]$ gpg --list-secret-keys
> > /home/user/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
> > -
> > sec   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SCEA]
> >   0E98...   6837
> > uid [ultimate] John R. Goold 
> > ssb   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SEA]
> > 
> > [user@vault ~]$
> > 
> > 
> > What is bizarre is that if I use "gpg --list-keys", the output is 
> > identical, which makes very little sense to me. I tried gpg2 but it gives 
> > the same result (not surprising as I deleted gpg and created gpg as a 
> > symbolic link to gpg2 (this was in an attempt to guess why things were 
> > going wrong).
> > 
> > [personal] terminal
> > 
> > 
> > [user@personal ~]$ qubes-gpg-client -K
> > /home/user/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
> > -
> > sec   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SCEA]
> >   0E98..  6837
> > uid   [ultimate] John R. Goold 
> > ssb   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SEA]
> > 
> > [user@personal ~]$
> > 
> > 
> > Note: After issuing the qubes-gpg-client command, there was a pop-dialog 
> > box asking for permission.
> > 
> > Following the advice in a thread in the qubes-users forum, I launched 
> > Thunderbird, deactivated and then deleted Enigmail. I then used Software in 
> > the template VM to install Enigmail. That did not change the result when 
> > attempting to send mail.
> > 
> > The on

[qubes-users] Enigmail - Split-GPG keyring access problem

2019-01-19 Thread John Goold
Once I had Qubes up and running with Thunderbird and enough basics to be able, 
more or less, use it as my main computing platform, I setup Split GPG and 
installed the Enigmail extension. At first it appeared to work fine as I was 
able to send signed email messages with my public key attached. However, it 
soon stopped working. I am now trying to resolve this issue.

So far I have been unsuccessful, so am appealing for assistance/pointers. That 
means providing rather a lot of information, but if you would bear with me, I 
would be grateful. By the way, Screenshot in an appVM (Fedora-29) just gives me 
a white rectangle when I view the saved image :-(  That is why I have typed in 
almost all the information below (in most cases I could not use copy-and-paste).

System

Qubes R4.0.1 with all updates applied.
Thunderbird 60.3.1
All Split-GPG parts installed (or it would not have worked in the first place)

The Problem

When I click Ctrl+Enter (to send the message), I get a pop up dialog request 
from the vault appVM, "Do you allow VM 'personal' to access your GPG keys..." I 
click "Yes" and there is a momentary notification that the keyring is being 
accessed (is there any way to make the notification persist longer than the 1 
or 2 seconds it pops up for as it is almost impossible to both notice it and 
actually read it?). As best I could read it, it said: "Keyring access from 
domain personal".

Then the following dialog box pops up:

[personal] Enigmail Information

Send operation aborted.

The configured key ID "0x6EC..." cannot be found on your keyring.


Configuration

Here are some configuration files:

[dom0] /etc/qubes-rpc/policy/qubes.Gpg  (why the capital G?)

personal vault allow
$anyvm  $anyvm  ask


[personal] /tw/config/gpg-split-domain

vault


[vault] ~/.bash_profile

# .bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs
QUBES_GPG_AUTOACCEPT=86400


Note: The above appears to have no effect on the request for permission which 
still states the default 300 seconds (and appears to honour the 300 seconds).

Other Debugging

[vault] terminal


[user@vault ~]$ gpg --list-secret-keys
/home/user/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
-
sec   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SCEA]
  0E98...   6837
uid [ultimate] John R. Goold 
ssb   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SEA]

[user@vault ~]$


What is bizarre is that if I use "gpg --list-keys", the output is identical, 
which makes very little sense to me. I tried gpg2 but it gives the same result 
(not surprising as I deleted gpg and created gpg as a symbolic link to gpg2 
(this was in an attempt to guess why things were going wrong).

[personal] terminal


[user@personal ~]$ qubes-gpg-client -K
/home/user/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
-
sec   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SCEA]
  0E98..  6837
uid   [ultimate] John R. Goold 
ssb   rsa2048 2019-01-11 [SEA]

[user@personal ~]$


Note: After issuing the qubes-gpg-client command, there was a pop-dialog box 
asking for permission.

Following the advice in a thread in the qubes-users forum, I launched 
Thunderbird, deactivated and then deleted Enigmail. I then used Software in the 
template VM to install Enigmail. That did not change the result when attempting 
to send mail.

The only other thing of significance is that I changed the template VM for my 
personal (and personal-projects) VM from Debian to Fedora for consistency. 
However, that change did not coincide with the Enigmail/Split-GPG problem.

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Re: [qubes-users] Thank You & How to "Give Back"?

2019-01-17 Thread John Goold
On Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 1:58:16 AM UTC-6, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> Hey John,
> 
> On 1/16/19 8:20 PM, John Goold wrote:
> > I want to say thank you to those members of Qubes Users who have had the 
> > patience to answer my questions and solve my problems getting Qubes up and 
> > running. I have been particularly pleased that this is a forum where there 
> > are few, if any, unhelpful responses to questions and few 
> > questions/requests for help where the asker has not tried to find the 
> > answer in this forum or in the documentation.
> 
> Thank you. As a long time user of Qubes OS I don't see how I could do
> without it so I'm happy to help the community here. Kind of "giving
> back" as you say. I'm sure it applies to the other users who helped you
> as well.
> 
> > While I have a computer background, my entire career was spend in the 
> > software/research environment, I do not have a background in PC/Linux 
> > internals (though decades ago I did acquire some Unix sys-admin knowledge). 
> > That means I came to Qubes without the the in-depth security knowledge that 
> > the more knowledgeable of you have — my knowledge is more superficial.
> > 
> > Having provided that background, I was trying to think of a way of "giving 
> > back" to this community.
> > 
> > Would a "Setting up a Semi-Secure Personal Computing Environment Using 
> > Qubes" document be a useful addition (albeit, with a more succinct title!)?
> > 
> > It would be aimed at computer users who want a more secure environment, but 
> > are willing to live with some security exposures (ones that hopefully have 
> > an exceedingly low probability of being exploited against an "average Joe") 
> > — for example, using a USB mouse and keyboard. Clearly one needs to have 
> > some degree of computer literacy to tackle switching to Qubes, but I think 
> > a step-by-step migration guide might be useful and fewer people might give 
> > up.
> > 
> > In it, I could briefly describe the "Hardware Issues" which are already 
> > well documented (hence "briefly" as they applied to me) and then get into 
> > the issues of choosing which qubes to set up, the issues of dealing with a 
> > desktop computer that only has USB mouse/keyboard capability, various 
> > user-interface issues and, perhaps more importantly, migrating data from 
> > another OS (in my case Linux Mint) to the Qubes environment.
> 
> In my opinion such document may be helpful as a blog post - but the
> problem would be visibility (only through search engines). Maybe a
> better way would be to improve the official qubes docs where you found
> things to be lacking details/clarity [1]. Some people find it easy to
> deal with the official docs, others don't. In the latter case you could
> float ideas/pull requests in the unofficial "qubes community" project
> [2] and folks there (including myself) would help you format them for
> submission to the official docs.
> 
> Writing docs can be time consuming though, so in any case spending a bit
> of time helping other people on the ML is already a nice way of "giving
> back" !
> 
> 
> [1] https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/doc-guidelines/#how-to-contribute
> [2] https://qubes-community.github.io/

Having written many technical documents over my career, I understand the 
time-consuming nature of the task. This is especially true if one cannot just 
write and publish a document, but needs to have it reviewed (and re-reviewed…).

I am willing to make that commitment. First let me do some more reading (and 
finish setting up my Qubes installation — still some odds and ends to do). Then 
I will get back to you (or via the Qubes Community link you kindly provided).

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[qubes-users] Renaming .desktop file side-effect

2019-01-16 Thread John Goold
I encountered an "interesting" phenomenon which could be a defect (bug) or 
expected behaviour (an odd "feature"). If a defect, it could be in the file 
manager under Debian (Nautilus?).

If I attempt to rename a file in ~/local/share/applications/ when I save the 
change, ".desktop" is appended to the file name. This occurs even if the name 
entered in the rename dialog already has a .desktop extension.

An example: I copied dropbox.desktop from /usr/share/applications to 
~/local/share/applications (to use as a template). Renaming it by just changing 
"dropbox" to "vuescan" resulted in vuescan.desktop.desktop.

It took me a few minutes to realize what was happening :-(  The easy workaround 
was to remove the .desktop file extension when renaming as it would 
automatically get appended.

Surely this is unexpected behaviour? Does anyone know if this is a "feature" 
and will it pop-up when attempting to rename files in other directories?

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[qubes-users] Thank You & How to "Give Back"?

2019-01-16 Thread John Goold
I want to say thank you to those members of Qubes Users who have had the 
patience to answer my questions and solve my problems getting Qubes up and 
running. I have been particularly pleased that this is a forum where there are 
few, if any, unhelpful responses to questions and few questions/requests for 
help where the asker has not tried to find the answer in this forum or in the 
documentation.

While I have a computer background, my entire career was spend in the 
software/research environment, I do not have a background in PC/Linux internals 
(though decades ago I did acquire some Unix sys-admin knowledge). That means I 
came to Qubes without the the in-depth security knowledge that the more 
knowledgeable of you have — my knowledge is more superficial.

Having provided that background, I was trying to think of a way of "giving 
back" to this community.

Would a "Setting up a Semi-Secure Personal Computing Environment Using Qubes" 
document be a useful addition (albeit, with a more succinct title!)?

It would be aimed at computer users who want a more secure environment, but are 
willing to live with some security exposures (ones that hopefully have an 
exceedingly low probability of being exploited against an "average Joe") — for 
example, using a USB mouse and keyboard. Clearly one needs to have some degree 
of computer literacy to tackle switching to Qubes, but I think a step-by-step 
migration guide might be useful and fewer people might give up.

In it, I could briefly describe the "Hardware Issues" which are already well 
documented (hence "briefly" as they applied to me) and then get into the issues 
of choosing which qubes to set up, the issues of dealing with a desktop 
computer that only has USB mouse/keyboard capability, various user-interface 
issues and, perhaps more importantly, migrating data from another OS (in my 
case Linux Mint) to the Qubes environment.

By the way, I have Thunderbird set up with Enigmail and have my keys set up 
using Split GPG. I will be switching tho using the mailing list for 
submissions. Oh, and I am now using Qubes as my full-time computing environment 
:-)

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Re: [qubes-users] Keyboard and mouse issue (R 4.0.1)

2019-01-16 Thread John Goold
On Wednesday, January 16, 2019 at 1:14:45 AM UTC-6, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> On 1/15/19 11:04 PM, John Goold wrote:
> > On Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 9:08:48 AM UTC-6, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> >> On 1/15/19 2:42 PM, unman wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 09:26:31AM +0200, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On 1/15/19 3:36 AM, jrg.desk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>> KEYBOARD
> >>>>>
> >>>>> How do I set the "compose" key on the keyboard? I have run several 
> >>>>> Linux distributions (base on Debian/Ubuntu) for several years and have 
> >>>>> had no problems setting a compose key so that I could enter 
> >>>>> diacriticals and symbols like the em-dash and the Spanish upside down 
> >>>>> exclamation and question marks.
> >>>>
> >>>> IIRC there's no gui setting in XFCE for setting a compose key. I don't
> >>>> use such key myself but I guess you can edit dom0's
> >>>> /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf and add XkbOptions there (eg.
> >>>> Option "XkbOptions" "compose:menu"). Run `grep "compose:"
> >>>> /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst` to find what keys you can use.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> The default key combo is Shift+AltGR - enabled by default in X
> >>> You can also set XkbOptions compose: in /etc/default/keyboard
> >>
> >> I thought that /etc/default/keyboard was only for debian and
> >> derivatives. Are you sure it works for fedora ?
> > 
> > First things first :-)  When trying out keyboard changes, I wanted them to 
> > apply globally (they work just fine when I use setxkbmap..., thanks) and so 
> > made a change in dom0. Since the test change did not seem to work, I 
> > thought I would try a complete reboot (imagining that when dom0 starts up, 
> > it reads its configuration files and then doesn't reread them after that).
> 
> Indeed, tweaking X conf files will require a reboot in Qubes OS. With a
> standard distribution you'd log off, kill/restart the X server, and log
> in again, but if you do so in Qubes OS your VM apps won't be displayed
> anymore (not sure if it's a bug or a feature - I never log off anyway so
> it doesn't bother me).
> 
> 
> > What a surprise -- my mouse reverted to being left-handed! I have no idea 
> > why (other than the reboot) or why it reverted to right-handed (other than 
> > the sys-usb VM being set up). Any way, the problem has "gone away".
> 
> Magic :)
> 
> 
> > Now for the keyboard changes. As I indicated, I wanted to turn off the Caps 
> > Lock key and set a "compose" key.
> > 
> > I launched a dom0 terminal and sudo'ed to root. Then I edited the file 
> > "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf" and added the XkbOptions line. It 
> > now reads:
> > 
> > Section "InputClass"
> > Identifier "system-keyboard"
> > MatchIsKeyboard "on"
> > Option "XkbLayout" "us"
> > Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > After rebooting, the Caps Lock key is now off in all Qubes :-)  However, I 
> > am not sure of the syntax of this file and do not want to make an error in 
> > the file in case it makes my keyboard inactive.
> > 
> > Can I change that last Option line to:
> > 
> > Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none compose:menu"
> > 
> > or do need to use a comma to separate the two options (could not find this 
> > information in the Wikipedia article) OR, possibly use:
> > 
> > Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none"
> > Option "XkbOptions" "compose:menu"
> > 
> 
> You'll have to use commas - eg.
> 
> Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none,compose:menu"
> 
> In case you mess up your X config and X won't start you should see a
> text login prompt instead the graphical login; you can login and fix
> conf files from there like you did from a terminal in dom0.

Perfect! Now my keyboard settings really are global and, as such things should 
be, set in one place.

Thank you for all the help you have been giving me.

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Re: [qubes-users] Keyboard and mouse issue (R 4.0.1)

2019-01-15 Thread John Goold
On Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 9:08:48 AM UTC-6, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> On 1/15/19 2:42 PM, unman wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 09:26:31AM +0200, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On 1/15/19 3:36 AM, jrg.desk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> KEYBOARD
> >>>
> >>> How do I set the "compose" key on the keyboard? I have run several Linux 
> >>> distributions (base on Debian/Ubuntu) for several years and have had no 
> >>> problems setting a compose key so that I could enter diacriticals and 
> >>> symbols like the em-dash and the Spanish upside down exclamation and 
> >>> question marks.
> >>
> >> IIRC there's no gui setting in XFCE for setting a compose key. I don't
> >> use such key myself but I guess you can edit dom0's
> >> /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf and add XkbOptions there (eg.
> >> Option "XkbOptions" "compose:menu"). Run `grep "compose:"
> >> /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst` to find what keys you can use.
> >>
> > 
> > The default key combo is Shift+AltGR - enabled by default in X
> > You can also set XkbOptions compose: in /etc/default/keyboard
> 
> I thought that /etc/default/keyboard was only for debian and
> derivatives. Are you sure it works for fedora ?

First things first :-)  When trying out keyboard changes, I wanted them to 
apply globally (they work just fine when I use setxkbmap..., thanks) and so 
made a change in dom0. Since the test change did not seem to work, I thought I 
would try a complete reboot (imagining that when dom0 starts up, it reads its 
configuration files and then doesn't reread them after that).

What a surprise -- my mouse reverted to being left-handed! I have no idea why 
(other than the reboot) or why it reverted to right-handed (other than the 
sys-usb VM being set up). Any way, the problem has "gone away".

Now for the keyboard changes. As I indicated, I wanted to turn off the Caps 
Lock key and set a "compose" key.

I launched a dom0 terminal and sudo'ed to root. Then I edited the file 
"/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf" and added the XkbOptions line. It now 
reads:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "system-keyboard"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none"
EndSection

After rebooting, the Caps Lock key is now off in all Qubes :-)  However, I am 
not sure of the syntax of this file and do not want to make an error in the 
file in case it makes my keyboard inactive.

Can I change that last Option line to:

Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none compose:menu"

or do need to use a comma to separate the two options (could not find this 
information in the Wikipedia article) OR, possibly use:

Option "XkbOptions" "caps:none"
Option "XkbOptions" "compose:menu"

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Re: [qubes-users] How to autostart a program in an appVM?

2019-01-15 Thread John Goold
On Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 12:31:00 AM UTC-6, Ivan Mitev wrote:
> On 1/15/19 3:46 AM, jrg.desk...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I am sure almost everyone has one or more appVMs in which they autostart 
> > programs. That is, how do I set things up so that when a particular appVM 
> > is automatically launched at boot time (or I manually start it), one or 
> > more programs get started automatically? For example, in my "personal" 
> > Qube, I want Thunderbird, Slack (the collaboration tool) and Dropbox to 
> > start automatically.
> > 
> > This is another thing I did under "straight" Linux, that I cannot see how 
> > to do under Qubes. I did the RTFM and attempted to find something relevant 
> > in the qubes-users forum -- no luck (or I missed seeing anything).
> 
> You'll have to use .desktop files (as per the freedesktop "standard" [1])
> 
> For a given VM create (or copy/symlink) the .desktop file of the
> application you want to autostart in $HOME/.config/autostart/
> 
> Eg. to start thunderbird:
> 
> mkdir -p $HOME/.config/autostart/ # in case it doesn't exist yet
> 
> ln -s /usr/share/applications/mozilla-thunderbird.desktop \
>$HOME/.config/autostart/
> 
> You can of course create custom .desktop files to (auto)run arbitrary stuff.
> 
> As a side note the system-wide folder (that you'd customize in your
> templateVMs) is /etc/xdg/autostart.
> 
> 
> [1] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/

@Ivan: Thanks, that worked just fine. I vaguely remember messing with .desktop 
files before my Linux distributions included GUI settings that handled 
autostart.

By the way, how do I "Mark as complete"?

@Alex: Thanks for responding. If I do not have to add programs for one-off 
tasks, I would rather not do so. But I will keep your suggestion in mind.

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Re: [qubes-users] Using a Desktop Computer with Qubes (R 4.0.1)

2019-01-13 Thread John Goold
On Sunday, 13 January 2019 17:56:10 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> On Sunday, 13 January 2019 15:50:13 UTC-3:30, 799  wrote:
> > Hello John,
> > 
> > 
> > welcome to Qubes ;-)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Sun, 13 Jan 2019 at 18:49, John Goold  wrote:
> > 
> > This leads to my first issue:
> > 
> > I seem unable to attach my scanner (it is a ScanSnap ix800 which is not a 
> > printer/scanner/copier, just a scanner) to an appVM. It does not appear in 
> > the Dom0 devices menu. If I plug in a USB drive, the drive shows up in the 
> > menu.
> > 
> > Is there a straightforward way to attach the scanner to an appVM (it will 
> > not be a server, but will always be the same appVM, "personal")?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I am not sure if I have understand you correctly, have you chosen to 
> > install a sys-usb-qube?
> > If you didn't you can also do  this after the installation.
> > If you chose not to use sys-usb, you could try to pass through one of the 
> > usb-controllers to the AppVM to which you connect the scanner to.
> > I have never used an Intel NUC before, but in case that you can run a Qube 
> > like sys-usb I suggest doing so.
> > You can then run the following command from dom0:
> > 
> > 
> > qvm-usb
> > 
> > 
> > then attach the scanner to the AppVM
> > qvm-usb attach  sys-usb:NR-NR
> >  
> > 2. I like to listen to a classical music radio station (CBC Music) and, 
> > when it is broadcasting other "stuff", streaming classical music from their 
> > website.
> > 
> > I can play YouTube videos, including hearing the audio, but the above does 
> > not work (the website page gets stuck loading/waiting for an audio stream).
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Can you send me the link of the radio station you're trying to listen to?
> > I'll give it a try to listen to it in my multimedia AppVM which is based on 
> > my howto here:
> > https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/multimedia/
> > 
> > 
> > - O
> 
> Just discovered that there is only one USB controller (but 4 USB connector 
> sockets). So when I tried to attach the USB controller to the appVM (had to 
> set it to HVM), I lost the mouse and keyboard :-(
> 
> I have got the impression from reading the documentation and posts to this 
> forum that if I have disk encryption enabled, that I cannot create a sys-usb 
> VM without losing the mouse+keyboard (and possibly not being able to enter 
> the pass-phrase when powering up.
> 
> The radio station is:   https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live/cbcmusic
> 
> The streaming music is: https://www.cbcmusic.ca/music-streams
> 
> Thank you for responding...

@799 I followed your multi-media templateVM how-to document. I installed VLC 
(haven't tried it yet) and Google Chrome.

I do not know if it was the library that was added, but I can now listen to the 
radio and streaming music.

I prefer Banshee to play my music which is all ripped from physical CDs I have 
bought over the decades (the sites I mentioned are the only ones I stream). 
However, I will check out VLC and see if it can handle my music library (it is 
organized differently than the organizations normally supported by music 
players, which is why I prefer Banshee -- I organized it using Banshee).

VLC definitely works (tried "opening a folder"). I will have to learn how to 
navigate my library with it.

THANK YOU.

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Re: [qubes-users] Using a Desktop Computer with Qubes (R 4.0.1)

2019-01-13 Thread John Goold
On Sunday, 13 January 2019 15:50:13 UTC-3:30, 799  wrote:
> Hello John,
> 
> 
> welcome to Qubes ;-)
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2019 at 18:49, John Goold  wrote:
> 
> This leads to my first issue:
> 
> I seem unable to attach my scanner (it is a ScanSnap ix800 which is not a 
> printer/scanner/copier, just a scanner) to an appVM. It does not appear in 
> the Dom0 devices menu. If I plug in a USB drive, the drive shows up in the 
> menu.
> 
> Is there a straightforward way to attach the scanner to an appVM (it will not 
> be a server, but will always be the same appVM, "personal")?
> 
> 
> 
> I am not sure if I have understand you correctly, have you chosen to install 
> a sys-usb-qube?
> If you didn't you can also do  this after the installation.
> If you chose not to use sys-usb, you could try to pass through one of the 
> usb-controllers to the AppVM to which you connect the scanner to.
> I have never used an Intel NUC before, but in case that you can run a Qube 
> like sys-usb I suggest doing so.
> You can then run the following command from dom0:
> 
> 
> qvm-usb
> 
> 
> then attach the scanner to the AppVM
> qvm-usb attach  sys-usb:NR-NR
>  
> 2. I like to listen to a classical music radio station (CBC Music) and, when 
> it is broadcasting other "stuff", streaming classical music from their 
> website.
> 
> I can play YouTube videos, including hearing the audio, but the above does 
> not work (the website page gets stuck loading/waiting for an audio stream).
> 
> 
> 
> Can you send me the link of the radio station you're trying to listen to?
> I'll give it a try to listen to it in my multimedia AppVM which is based on 
> my howto here:
> https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/multimedia/
> 
> 
> - O

Just discovered that there is only one USB controller (but 4 USB connector 
sockets). So when I tried to attach the USB controller to the appVM (had to set 
it to HVM), I lost the mouse and keyboard :-(

I have got the impression from reading the documentation and posts to this 
forum that if I have disk encryption enabled, that I cannot create a sys-usb VM 
without losing the mouse+keyboard (and possibly not being able to enter the 
pass-phrase when powering up.

The radio station is:   https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live/cbcmusic

The streaming music is: https://www.cbcmusic.ca/music-streams

Thank you for responding...

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[qubes-users] Using a Desktop Computer with Qubes (R 4.0.1)

2019-01-13 Thread John Goold
I am one of those Qubes newbies. I do have a "computer" background, having 
started out on Mainframe computers — I have been retired for over 20 years; 
however, I now use my computer as a tool (though I do some website development 
to keep the neurons firing). I do not need a highly locked down computer, but 
do want to use whatever security improvements I can reasonably get with Qubes 
without the set-up and maintenance becoming a full-time job. I also prefer to 
using a GUI when possible (spent decades using terminals).
___

Normally I would post each issue as a separate post to a forum such as this; 
however, these are all related to the "Subject" and my getting started. I 
always try searching for similar issues before posting, but (here) have not 
found solutions (either here or in the documentation).


1. The NUC is an Intel desktop computer with a nice small foot-print (Intel 
NUC7i7 BNH with 512 GB SSD and 32GB RAM). The only mouse and keyboard that 
works are USB (there is no PS/1 port) — possibly bluetooth devices would work 
but I do not want to get into the issues involved (I do use an Apple bluetooth 
keyboard with Linux Mint on my HP laptop).

My disk is encrypted and the installation nicely reminded me of the warnings in 
this forum about setting up sys-usb — so sys-usb is a non-starter. This leads 
to my first issue:

I seem unable to attach my scanner (it is a ScanSnap ix800 which is not a 
printer/scanner/copier, just a scanner) to an appVM. It does not appear in the 
Dom0 devices menu. If I plug in a USB drive, the drive shows up in the menu.

Is there a straightforward way to attach the scanner to an appVM (it will not 
be a server, but will always be the same appVM, "personal")?

2. I like to listen to a classical music radio station (CBC Music) and, when it 
is broadcasting other "stuff", streaming classical music from their website.

I can play YouTube videos, including hearing the audio, but the above does not 
work (the website page gets stuck loading/waiting for an audio stream).

I imagine this has something to do with proxy settings. Is this correct? I have 
created an appVM ("entertainment") specifically to handle playing music, so I 
am not worried about it getting compromised because I use less secure settings 
for it.

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Re: [qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2019-01-13 Thread John Goold
On Thursday, 27 December 2018 20:49:14 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> On Thursday, 27 December 2018 16:24:23 UTC-3:30, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki  
> wrote:
> > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> > Hash: SHA256
> > 
> > On Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 09:24:01AM -0800, John Goold wrote:
> > > On Thursday, 20 December 2018 22:02:00 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> > > > Attached is screenshot, taken under my current OS, showing OS and 
> > > > hardware info.
> > > > 
> > > > After spending much too much time trying to track the problem down 
> > > > (using the 4.0, 4.0.1-RC1 and 4.0.1-RC2 ISOs) I discovered why getting 
> > > > the installer to run was failing...
> > > > 
> > > > I had to unplug my external monitor (connected via an HDMI port).
> > > > 
> > > > I was then able to boot the install DVD and install to an external USB 
> > > > (SSD) drive (Seagate 2 TB). The install completed (supposedly 
> > > > successfully), but attempts to boot from the USB drive fail.
> > > > 
> > > > The boot process starts, with text being displayed starting in the top 
> > > > left corner of the screen. It progresses to a point, then the screen 
> > > > goes black and my computer starts to reboot.
> > > > 
> > > > I have searched the mailing list and have failed to find a solution 
> > > > (hours spent doing this). A lot of people seem to end up in boot-loops, 
> > > > using various hardware.
> > > > 
> > > > The attached file shows the hardware. The following information about 
> > > > the BIOS/Firmware may be relevant:
> > > > 
> > > > * Legacy Boot is enabled
> > > > * Virtualization Technology is enabled
> > > > 
> > > > During the install I setup a user account. I did not enable disk 
> > > > encryption (I will leave that until after I can get Qubes to boot).
> > > > 
> > > > Comment: This boot-loop problem (or similar boot-loop problems) seems 
> > > > to be a major issue with installing Qubes 4.x. Each time I come across 
> > > > a posting about it, there seem to be different suggestions (some of 
> > > > which work on the particular hardware involved) and some of which do 
> > > > not.
> > > > 
> > > > I believe that I tried R3.1 about a year or so ago and that it booted 
> > > > alright. I cannot remember why I did not follow through on adopting 
> > > > Qubes (if I could not get my external monitor working, that would be a 
> > > > deal-breaker).
> > > > 
> > > > Suggestions would be appreciated. I will provide any additional 
> > > > information I am capable of.
> > > 
> > > This thread is getting verbose, so I have replied to the original post 
> > > and will attempt a brief summary of the rest of the thread (for context):
> > > 
> > > Determining what is happening would be facilitated by seeing any entries 
> > > in log files (assuming the boot got far enough to log anything).
> > > 
> > > That means checking files on the USB drive used as the target of the 
> > > install and which causes the boot-loop when attempting to boot.
> > > 
> > > Since the boot is failing, I cannot look at the log files under the 
> > > booted Qubes OS, so instead I attempted to look for the log files when 
> > > booted into another OS (Linux Mint 19.1).
> > > 
> > > Qubes is using LVM to handle allocating disk space (presumably to 
> > > facilitate being able to add additional physical disks to an existing 
> > > Qubes install). There appeared, at first glance to be 3 Logical volumes:
> > > 
> > > pool00
> > > root
> > > swap
> > > 
> > > Linux Mint mounted the LV "swap" automatically, but not the other two. 
> > > The other two appear not to be "activated" and mount attempts failed. 
> > > Attempts to "activate" the LVs fail.
> > > 
> > > After searching the Net for information on LVM, I came across an article 
> > > that helped me understand the Qubes setup better…
> > > 
> > > There is one Logical Volume Group called "qubes_dom0".
> > > Within that there is a Logical Volume, "swap", that is detected and 
> > > mounted automatically by my Linux Mint installation.
> > > Additionally, there is a "Thin Pool" allocated that uses up the re

Re: [qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-27 Thread John Goold
On Thursday, 27 December 2018 16:24:23 UTC-3:30, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki  
wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA256
> 
> On Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 09:24:01AM -0800, John Goold wrote:
> > On Thursday, 20 December 2018 22:02:00 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> > > Attached is screenshot, taken under my current OS, showing OS and 
> > > hardware info.
> > > 
> > > After spending much too much time trying to track the problem down (using 
> > > the 4.0, 4.0.1-RC1 and 4.0.1-RC2 ISOs) I discovered why getting the 
> > > installer to run was failing...
> > > 
> > > I had to unplug my external monitor (connected via an HDMI port).
> > > 
> > > I was then able to boot the install DVD and install to an external USB 
> > > (SSD) drive (Seagate 2 TB). The install completed (supposedly 
> > > successfully), but attempts to boot from the USB drive fail.
> > > 
> > > The boot process starts, with text being displayed starting in the top 
> > > left corner of the screen. It progresses to a point, then the screen goes 
> > > black and my computer starts to reboot.
> > > 
> > > I have searched the mailing list and have failed to find a solution 
> > > (hours spent doing this). A lot of people seem to end up in boot-loops, 
> > > using various hardware.
> > > 
> > > The attached file shows the hardware. The following information about the 
> > > BIOS/Firmware may be relevant:
> > > 
> > > * Legacy Boot is enabled
> > > * Virtualization Technology is enabled
> > > 
> > > During the install I setup a user account. I did not enable disk 
> > > encryption (I will leave that until after I can get Qubes to boot).
> > > 
> > > Comment: This boot-loop problem (or similar boot-loop problems) seems to 
> > > be a major issue with installing Qubes 4.x. Each time I come across a 
> > > posting about it, there seem to be different suggestions (some of which 
> > > work on the particular hardware involved) and some of which do not.
> > > 
> > > I believe that I tried R3.1 about a year or so ago and that it booted 
> > > alright. I cannot remember why I did not follow through on adopting Qubes 
> > > (if I could not get my external monitor working, that would be a 
> > > deal-breaker).
> > > 
> > > Suggestions would be appreciated. I will provide any additional 
> > > information I am capable of.
> > 
> > This thread is getting verbose, so I have replied to the original post and 
> > will attempt a brief summary of the rest of the thread (for context):
> > 
> > Determining what is happening would be facilitated by seeing any entries in 
> > log files (assuming the boot got far enough to log anything).
> > 
> > That means checking files on the USB drive used as the target of the 
> > install and which causes the boot-loop when attempting to boot.
> > 
> > Since the boot is failing, I cannot look at the log files under the booted 
> > Qubes OS, so instead I attempted to look for the log files when booted into 
> > another OS (Linux Mint 19.1).
> > 
> > Qubes is using LVM to handle allocating disk space (presumably to 
> > facilitate being able to add additional physical disks to an existing Qubes 
> > install). There appeared, at first glance to be 3 Logical volumes:
> > 
> > pool00
> > root
> > swap
> > 
> > Linux Mint mounted the LV "swap" automatically, but not the other two. The 
> > other two appear not to be "activated" and mount attempts failed. Attempts 
> > to "activate" the LVs fail.
> > 
> > After searching the Net for information on LVM, I came across an article 
> > that helped me understand the Qubes setup better…
> > 
> > There is one Logical Volume Group called "qubes_dom0".
> > Within that there is a Logical Volume, "swap", that is detected and mounted 
> > automatically by my Linux Mint installation.
> > Additionally, there is a "Thin Pool" allocated that uses up the rest of the 
> > space in the Volume Group. It is distinguished by information displayed by 
> > the lvdisplay command ("LV Pool metadata" and "LV Pool data").
> > 
> > Within that "thin pool", a logical volume, "root" has been created that 
> > uses all the disk space currently assigned.
> 
> Yes, that's right.
> 
> - From what I've seen in this thread, you did it right, but the system you
> used di

[qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-26 Thread John Goold
On Thursday, 20 December 2018 22:02:00 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> Attached is screenshot, taken under my current OS, showing OS and hardware 
> info.
> 
> After spending much too much time trying to track the problem down (using the 
> 4.0, 4.0.1-RC1 and 4.0.1-RC2 ISOs) I discovered why getting the installer to 
> run was failing...
> 
> I had to unplug my external monitor (connected via an HDMI port).
> 
> I was then able to boot the install DVD and install to an external USB (SSD) 
> drive (Seagate 2 TB). The install completed (supposedly successfully), but 
> attempts to boot from the USB drive fail.
> 
> The boot process starts, with text being displayed starting in the top left 
> corner of the screen. It progresses to a point, then the screen goes black 
> and my computer starts to reboot.
> 
> I have searched the mailing list and have failed to find a solution (hours 
> spent doing this). A lot of people seem to end up in boot-loops, using 
> various hardware.
> 
> The attached file shows the hardware. The following information about the 
> BIOS/Firmware may be relevant:
> 
> * Legacy Boot is enabled
> * Virtualization Technology is enabled
> 
> During the install I setup a user account. I did not enable disk encryption 
> (I will leave that until after I can get Qubes to boot).
> 
> Comment: This boot-loop problem (or similar boot-loop problems) seems to be a 
> major issue with installing Qubes 4.x. Each time I come across a posting 
> about it, there seem to be different suggestions (some of which work on the 
> particular hardware involved) and some of which do not.
> 
> I believe that I tried R3.1 about a year or so ago and that it booted 
> alright. I cannot remember why I did not follow through on adopting Qubes (if 
> I could not get my external monitor working, that would be a deal-breaker).
> 
> Suggestions would be appreciated. I will provide any additional information I 
> am capable of.

This thread is getting verbose, so I have replied to the original post and will 
attempt a brief summary of the rest of the thread (for context):

Determining what is happening would be facilitated by seeing any entries in log 
files (assuming the boot got far enough to log anything).

That means checking files on the USB drive used as the target of the install 
and which causes the boot-loop when attempting to boot.

Since the boot is failing, I cannot look at the log files under the booted 
Qubes OS, so instead I attempted to look for the log files when booted into 
another OS (Linux Mint 19.1).

Qubes is using LVM to handle allocating disk space (presumably to facilitate 
being able to add additional physical disks to an existing Qubes install). 
There appeared, at first glance to be 3 Logical volumes:

pool00
root
swap

Linux Mint mounted the LV "swap" automatically, but not the other two. The 
other two appear not to be "activated" and mount attempts failed. Attempts to 
"activate" the LVs fail.

After searching the Net for information on LVM, I came across an article that 
helped me understand the Qubes setup better…

There is one Logical Volume Group called "qubes_dom0".
Within that there is a Logical Volume, "swap", that is detected and mounted 
automatically by my Linux Mint installation.
Additionally, there is a "Thin Pool" allocated that uses up the rest of the 
space in the Volume Group. It is distinguished by information displayed by the 
lvdisplay command ("LV Pool metadata" and "LV Pool data").

Within that "thin pool", a logical volume, "root" has been created that uses 
all the disk space currently assigned.

Unfortunately, that knowledge has not helped me mount the LV, "root". The mount 
fails. It is still not clear whether the Qubes install has done (or failed to 
do) something to the LVM setup or whether I have just failed to understand how 
to activate the thin pool and the contained logical volume.

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Re: [qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-24 Thread John Goold
On Monday, 24 December 2018 15:52:28 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> On Sunday, 23 December 2018 01:39:36 UTC-3:30, awokd  wrote:
> > John Goold:
> > 
> > > Well, I guess I am out of my depth with LVM or the install did not create 
> > > the LVM group/volumes/ correctly.  :(
> > > 
> > 
> > Those LVM commands don't look quite right. Try the ones mentioned here: 
> > https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/232905/lvm-mount-rescue-mode 
> > for example. If you do get root to mount, look at /var/log/boot.log in 
> > there, and maybe /var/log/xen/console/hypervisor.log.
> 
> I tried those, they only repeat the same results I was already getting.
> 
> What bothers me is that all the discussions I have found so far about LVM 
> discuss physical drives (PV - Physical Volume), Volume Groups (VG) and 
> Logical Volumes (LV). An example is 
> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-lvm-concepts-terminology-and-operations
> 
> However, they do not discuss "Pools". My output from the lvs command has a 
> column I do not see in any of the discussions labelled "Pool":
> 
> root@JRGsHPSpectre:~# lvs
>   LV VG Attr   LSize  Pool
>   pool00 qubes_dom0 twi---tz-- <1.80t 
>  
>   root   qubes_dom0 Vwi---tz-- <1.80t pool00  
>  
>   swap   qubes_dom0 -wi-a-  7.48g 
>  
> root@JRGsHPSpectre:~#
> 
> I deleted the remaining column labels as there was nothing listed under them. 
> Notice that the two Logical Volumes that are not mounted automatically (and 
> which I am having problems with) each have an attribute that "swap" (the LV 
> that is mounted automatically) does not have: "pool00" has the "t" attribute 
> and "root" has the "V" attribute. Also, those two LVs have exactly the same 
> size.
> 
> I am guessing that "pool00" is some higher level of management and that 
> "root" is allocated in "pool00" — but it is purely a guess.
> 
> So far I have not encountered information about "pools" with regard to LVM. 
> It looks like I need to understand these in order to mount the "root" LV (or 
> at least find the necessary commands to work with pools).

===

I may have found something, "thin Provisioned Volumes": 
https://www.linuxtechi.com/thin-provisioned-logical-volumes-centos-7-rhel-7/

I have only skimmed the article. I need to go through it carefully.

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Re: [qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-24 Thread John Goold
On Sunday, 23 December 2018 01:39:36 UTC-3:30, awokd  wrote:
> John Goold:
> 
> > Well, I guess I am out of my depth with LVM or the install did not create 
> > the LVM group/volumes/ correctly.  :(
> > 
> 
> Those LVM commands don't look quite right. Try the ones mentioned here: 
> https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/232905/lvm-mount-rescue-mode 
> for example. If you do get root to mount, look at /var/log/boot.log in 
> there, and maybe /var/log/xen/console/hypervisor.log.

I tried those, they only repeat the same results I was already getting.

What bothers me is that all the discussions I have found so far about LVM 
discuss physical drives (PV - Physical Volume), Volume Groups (VG) and Logical 
Volumes (LV). An example is 
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-lvm-concepts-terminology-and-operations

However, they do not discuss "Pools". My output from the lvs command has a 
column I do not see in any of the discussions labelled "Pool":

root@JRGsHPSpectre:~# lvs
  LV VG Attr   LSize  Pool
  pool00 qubes_dom0 twi---tz-- <1.80t   
   
  root   qubes_dom0 Vwi---tz-- <1.80t pool00
   
  swap   qubes_dom0 -wi-a-  7.48g   
   
root@JRGsHPSpectre:~#

I deleted the remaining column labels as there was nothing listed under them. 
Notice that the two Logical Volumes that are not mounted automatically (and 
which I am having problems with) each have an attribute that "swap" (the LV 
that is mounted automatically) does not have: "pool00" has the "t" attribute 
and "root" has the "V" attribute. Also, those two LVs have exactly the same 
size.

I am guessing that "pool00" is some higher level of management and that "root" 
is allocated in "pool00" — but it is purely a guess.

So far I have not encountered information about "pools" with regard to LVM. It 
looks like I need to understand these in order to mount the "root" LV (or at 
least find the necessary commands to work with pools).

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Re: [qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-22 Thread John Goold
On Saturday, 22 December 2018 13:53:19 UTC-3:30, awokd  wrote:
> John Goold:
> > I should have been clearer in indicating how far the boot process got:
> > 
> > The text messages were displayed starting in the top left corner of the 
> > screen until the screen cleared and the Qubes Q-logo was displayed with a 
> > progress bar underneath.
> > 
> > The boot process continued until the progress indicator was about 1/4 to 
> > 1/3 of the way across, then the screen went black and my computer starts to 
> > reboot.
> > 
> Did the 4.0 installer reboot in the same spot? I've heard of this 
> happening with newer kernels sometimes, but the one in the original 
> release is older. Also, if you're getting that far there might be 
> something in the log files. Boot in rescue mode if you can (or another 
> distribution), mount the system disk and check.

@awokd Thank you very much for responding — I do appreciate the effort.

Here is my attempt to find the log file(s). I am booted in another distribution 
(Linux Mint 19.1 64-bit Cinnamon):

I used "sudo" to become root and then:

root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0# lvmdiskscan
  /dev/qubes_dom0/swap [   7.48 GiB] 
  /dev/sda1[ 200.00 MiB] 
  /dev/sda2[ <27.95 GiB] 
  /dev/sda3[ 428.30 GiB] 
  /dev/sda4[   9.31 GiB] 
  /dev/sdb1[ 500.00 MiB] 
  /dev/sdb2[  <1.82 TiB] LVM physical volume
  1 disk
  5 partitions
  0 LVM physical volume whole disks
  1 LVM physical volume
root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0#

So there is the Qubes swap partition (7.48 GiB). /dev/sdb2 is the USB disk 
drive that was the target of the Qubes install.

lvdisplay >> ~john/temp/LVM-Info.txt  # result below

  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Namepool00
  VG Namequbes_dom0
  LV UUIDfWWjqo-5OdP-J5pO-obIu-Is0u-KekI-w5Dj26
  LV Write Accessread/write
  LV Creation host, time localhost.localdomain, 2018-12-20 13:49:26 -0330
  LV Pool metadata   pool00_tmeta
  LV Pool data   pool00_tdata
  LV Status  NOT available
  LV Size<1.80 TiB
  Current LE 470795
  Segments   1
  Allocation inherit
  Read ahead sectors auto
   
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path/dev/qubes_dom0/root
  LV Nameroot
  VG Namequbes_dom0
  LV UUIDEBmNyt-sCQi-5G4V-EpQQ-GLuJ-SCCY-MnWssJ
  LV Write Accessread/write
  LV Creation host, time localhost.localdomain, 2018-12-20 13:49:27 -0330
  LV Pool name   pool00
  LV Status  NOT available
  LV Size<1.80 TiB
  Current LE 470795
  Segments   1
  Allocation inherit
  Read ahead sectors auto
   
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path/dev/qubes_dom0/swap
  LV Nameswap
  VG Namequbes_dom0
  LV UUIDaLPIfF-1EHL-5a1X-ejaj-DNdK-yHk2-TCLZXH
  LV Write Accessread/write
  LV Creation host, time localhost.localdomain, 2018-12-20 13:49:28 -0330
  LV Status  available
  # open 0
  LV Size7.48 GiB
  Current LE 1915
  Segments   1
  Allocation inherit
  Read ahead sectors auto
  - currently set to 256
  Block device   253:0
   
This appears to show 3 logical volumes: pool00, root and swap (which appears to 
be mounted). Note that pool00 and root both have an "LV Status" of "NOT 
available".

I created a mount point, /mnt/lvroot and then attempted to mount the root 
logical volume:

root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0# ls -l /mnt
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 22 17:23 lvroot
root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0#

root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0# mount /dev/qubes_dom0/root /mnt/lvroot -o 
ro,user
mount: /mnt/lvroot: special device /dev/qubes_dom0/root does not exist.
root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0#

Well, so much for that :(

Let us see if we can make the other logical volumes active:

root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0# vgchange --activate y --force qubes_dom0
  /usr/sbin/thin_check: execvp failed: No such file or directory
  Check of pool qubes_dom0/pool00 failed (status:2). Manual repair required!
  /usr/sbin/thin_check: execvp failed: No such file or directory
  1 logical volume(s) in volume group "qubes_dom0" now active
root@JRGsHPSpectre:/dev/qubes_dom0#

Well, I guess I am out of my depth with LVM or the install did not create the 
LVM group/volumes/ correctly.  :(

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[qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-20 Thread John Goold
I should have been clearer in indicating how far the boot process got:

The text messages were displayed starting in the top left corner of the screen 
until the screen cleared and the Qubes Q-logo was displayed with a progress bar 
underneath.

The boot process continued until the progress indicator was about 1/4 to 1/3 of 
the way across, then the screen went black and my computer starts to reboot.

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[qubes-users] Re: 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-20 Thread John Goold
On Thursday, 20 December 2018 22:02:00 UTC-3:30, John Goold  wrote:
> Attached is screenshot, taken under my current OS, showing OS and hardware 
> info.
> 
> After spending much too much time trying to track the problem down (using the 
> 4.0, 4.0.1-RC1 and 4.0.1-RC2 ISOs) I discovered why getting the installer to 
> run was failing...
> 
> I had to unplug my external monitor (connected via an HDMI port).
> 
> I was then able to boot the install DVD and install to an external USB (SSD) 
> drive (Seagate 2 TB). The install completed (supposedly successfully), but 
> attempts to boot from the USB drive fail.
> 
> The boot process starts, with text being displayed starting in the top left 
> corner of the screen. It progresses to the point that the Qubes Q-logo is 
> displayed with a progress bar below it. The boot process continues until the 
> progress indicator is 1/4 to 1/3 of the way across, then the screen goes 
> black and my computer starts to reboot.
> 
> I have searched the mailing list and have failed to find a solution (hours 
> spent doing this). A lot of people seem to end up in boot-loops, using 
> various hardware.
> 
> The attached file shows the hardware. The following information about the 
> BIOS/Firmware may be relevant:
> 
> * Legacy Boot is enabled
> * Virtualization Technology is enabled
> 
> During the install I setup a user account. I did not enable disk encryption 
> (I will leave that until after I can get Qubes to boot).
> 
> Comment: This boot-loop problem (or similar boot-loop problems) seems to be a 
> major issue with installing Qubes 4.x. Each time I come across a posting 
> about it, there seem to be different suggestions (some of which work on the 
> particular hardware involved) and some of which do not.
> 
> I believe that I tried R3.1 about a year or so ago and that it booted 
> alright. I cannot remember why I did not follow through on adopting Qubes (if 
> I could not get my external monitor working, that would be a deal-breaker).
> 
> Suggestions would be appreciated. I will provide any additional information I 
> am capable of.

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[qubes-users] 4.0.1-RC2 Boot loop after install

2018-12-20 Thread John Goold
Attached is screenshot, taken under my current OS, showing OS and hardware info.

After spending much too much time trying to track the problem down (using the 
4.0, 4.0.1-RC1 and 4.0.1-RC2 ISOs) I discovered why getting the installer to 
run was failing...

I had to unplug my external monitor (connected via an HDMI port).

I was then able to boot the install DVD and install to an external USB (SSD) 
drive (Seagate 2 TB). The install completed (supposedly successfully), but 
attempts to boot from the USB drive fail.

The boot process starts, with text being displayed starting in the top left 
corner of the screen. It progresses to a point, then the screen goes black and 
my computer starts to reboot.

I have searched the mailing list and have failed to find a solution (hours 
spent doing this). A lot of people seem to end up in boot-loops, using various 
hardware.

The attached file shows the hardware. The following information about the 
BIOS/Firmware may be relevant:

* Legacy Boot is enabled
* Virtualization Technology is enabled

During the install I setup a user account. I did not enable disk encryption (I 
will leave that until after I can get Qubes to boot).

Comment: This boot-loop problem (or similar boot-loop problems) seems to be a 
major issue with installing Qubes 4.x. Each time I come across a posting about 
it, there seem to be different suggestions (some of which work on the 
particular hardware involved) and some of which do not.

I believe that I tried R3.1 about a year or so ago and that it booted alright. 
I cannot remember why I did not follow through on adopting Qubes (if I could 
not get my external monitor working, that would be a deal-breaker).

Suggestions would be appreciated. I will provide any additional information I 
am capable of.

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[qubes-users] Network printer: Printing test page - unable to locate printer

2016-08-15 Thread John Goold
Background: I am testing Qubes OS 3.1 on my desktop machine (CompuLabs 
Intense PC) with a view to migrating my laptop (HP Spectre X360) from 
Linux Mint 18 (Xfce).


My network printer is functioning under Linux Mint (based on Debian). I 
appeared to have successfully added the printer (Epson WorkForce 360) to 
the default debian-8 template VM following the instructions 
(https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/network-printer/).


I then shutdown the template VM and started a qube based on it. Attempts 
to print failed, so I back-tracked to the template VM, starting it up, 
setting "Allow full access for" (20 min), starting Printer settings 
(which I had added to the menu) and attempting to print a test page.


This was looking like it was working but after getting to "Processing - 
Print page 1: 26%", the message changes to "Processing - Unable to 
locate printer."


I've read all the seemingly relevant posts (did a search for "network 
printer") and none of them seem to apply.


When setting up the printer (in Qubes), there didn't appear to be a 
"Find network printer", other than a dialogue box that asks for a 
"Host:). I was not sure what would happen, but I plugged-in the URI 
(checking the settings on my laptop). That appeared to work as the 
dialog filled in the "Make and Model:".


Looking at the properties on my laptop (LM) and the debian-8 template, 
the only difference appears to be in the version of Gutenprint (v5.2.11 
on the laptop; v5.2.10 on the desktop) -- complete properties listed at 
the bottom.


The only other difference (other than OSes!) is that the laptop is 
connected using WiFi and the desktop with ethernet (but when it was 
running Linux Mint, I had no printing problems). Networking doesn't 
"appear" to be a problem (I have a qube based on the debian-8 template 
that I am using for web surfing and listening to streaming radio).

__

Settings: (see note about Gutenprint above)

Description:  Epson WorkForce 630
Location: Study
Device URI: dnssd://EPSON5A0FBB%20(WorkForce%20630)._printer._tcp.local/
Make and Model: Epson WorkForce 630 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.10
__

Any suggestions for further steps in resolving this issue would be 
greatly appreciated.


John
St. John's, NL Canada


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