Is there a way to save dispvm snapshots for fast startup?

[Elias Mårtenson]

Qubes 3.2 supported snapshots that made starting up a dispvm very fast. This functionality seems to have disappeared in 4.0. Is there a way to do something similar now?

If I'm lucky, a dispvm starts in about 30 seconds. If I'm unlucky it doesn't start at all (rexec timeout, I think) and I have to try again. Getting the snapshot behaviour from 3.2 would be very helpful.

Regards,

Elias

[blacklight]

qubes never had these snapshots you mentionded, but were you refering to the dvm images? 

[Elias Mårtenson]

On 9 Nov 2017 9:33 pm, "blacklight" <pandak...@gmail.com> wrote:

qubes never had these snapshots you mentionded, but were you refering to the dvm images?

Perhaps. It certainly did something that made DVM's start really quickly. Definitely faster thaw a normal VM. I always assumed it took a snapshot after booting, but I could be wrong. I would very much like to know what it did. 

Whatever it did, it certainly made the experience of using DVM's much nicer, and the question is if something similar is available in 4.0?

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

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Currently not. We'll work on improving DispVM performance, but after
final 4.0 release. Some ideas include:
- having PVHv2 really working (it will cut stubdomain and bootloader
out of boot process - about 1-2s improvement)
- pre-starting a DispVM so it sits there ready for use[2] - this have
noticeable memory impact, but similar to 3.2 - copy of the savefile
is stored in dom0 RAM

As for qrexec timeouts, this is unrelated issue[1], which we have some
(hopefully sufficient) fix - it will land in testing repo today.

[1] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/3221
[2] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1512

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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[Elias Mårtenson]

On Thursday, 9 November 2017 23:25:34 UTC+8, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:

> Whatever it did, it certainly made the experience of using DVM's much
> nicer, and the question is if something similar is available in 4.0?

Currently not. We'll work on improving DispVM performance, but after
final 4.0 release. Some ideas include:
 - having PVHv2 really working (it will cut stubdomain and bootloader
   out of boot process - about 1-2s improvement)
 - pre-starting a DispVM so it sits there ready for use[2] - this have
   noticeable memory impact, but similar to 3.2 - copy of the savefile
   is stored in dom0 RAM

Is that how it worked in 3.2? Because I'm sure it was very fast there (less

than 10 seconds, if I remember correctly).

 

As for qrexec timeouts, this is unrelated issue[1], which we have some
(hopefully sufficient) fix - it will land in testing repo today.

Did it land yet? I did a dom0-update from testing and I'm still suffering from

this issue (although I can't say if the frequency has been reduced).

Regards,

Elias

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

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On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 01:45:32AM -0800, Elias Mårtenson wrote:
> On Thursday, 9 November 2017 23:25:34 UTC+8, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
> wrote:
>
> > Whatever it did, it certainly made the experience of using DVM's much
> > > nicer, and the question is if something similar is available in 4.0?
> >
> > Currently not. We'll work on improving DispVM performance, but after
> > final 4.0 release. Some ideas include:
> > - having PVHv2 really working (it will cut stubdomain and bootloader
> > out of boot process - about 1-2s improvement)
> > - pre-starting a DispVM so it sits there ready for use[2] - this have
> > noticeable memory impact, but similar to 3.2 - copy of the savefile
> > is stored in dom0 RAM
> >
>
> Is that how it worked in 3.2? Because I'm sure it was very fast there (less
> than 10 seconds, if I remember correctly).

There is a chance it will be even faster (the second option).

> > As for qrexec timeouts, this is unrelated issue[1], which we have some
> > (hopefully sufficient) fix - it will land in testing repo today.
>
>
> Did it land yet? I did a dom0-update from testing and I'm still suffering
> from
> this issue (although I can't say if the frequency has been reduced).

No, there were some infrastructure-related problems. It should be there
tomorrow...

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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