Can't get disposable VMs to work

[Chris Mays]

I just installed Qubes OS for the first time today, and am having troubles getting a disposable VM to run. The system menu for Firefox and XTerm just stall. Is there something I am missing?

Regards

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 2016-10-02 20:45, Chris Mays wrote:
> I just installed Qubes OS for the first time today, and am having troubles getting a disposable VM to run. The system menu for Firefox and XTerm just stall. Is there something I am missing?
>
> Regards
>

Try running this command in dom0:

$ qvm-create-default-dvm --default-template

If the final line of output is "DVM savefile created successfully," then it has completed successfully, and you should try starting a new DispVM again.

If it doesn't complete successfully, post the output here.

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=0BEc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Chris Mays]

That command ran successfully.

> DVM savefile created successfully.

The DispVM still fails to start. When clicked from the XFCE menu, I see a notification "Starting new DispVM..." and nothing happens after that.

[raah...@gmail.com]

go to qubes-manager and view menu and select show hide internal vms, and delete all the dvm ones. then try qvm-create-default-dvm fedora-23

[Chris Mays]

I only had one, "fedora-23-dvm". I deleted it and recreated it, but the DispVM is still not starting.

[raah...@gmail.com]

have you rebooted machine? is it just the default firefox dispvm entry? What if you load a terminal from a vm, then try to load an app in a vm with, qvm-run '$dispvm' appname

[Selton]

Am Dienstag, 4. Oktober 2016 18:53:36 UTC+2 schrieb cooloutac:
> have you rebooted machine? is it just the default firefox dispvm entry? What if you load a terminal from a vm, then try to load an app in a vm with, qvm-run '$dispvm' appname

I have the exact same problem as OP. I recreated the DispVM multiple times now and rebooted several times.
The behaviour is the same for the Qubes start menu entry (DisposableVM -> Firefox and xterm) as well as tries to cross load it either by the context menu for a file or by qvm-run '$dispvm' xterm: I get a bubble msg in dom0 saying "Starting new DispVM..." and afterwards happens nothing. I could not find any helpful log output so far, can you point me to some or give some other tips? A disposable VM is quite an important feature...

[cooloutac]

make sure you delete all the old dvm's before creating a new one. Show internal vms in qubes manager and see if you have more then one.

[Selton]

> make sure you delete all the old dvm's before creating a new one. Show internal vms in qubes manager and see if you have more then one.

Already did (I think this was mentioned before, if not here in another thread) and this is not the problem. There is only one dvm (which I also deleted/recreated several times with several different fedora versions).

[Unman]

I'm assuming this is 3.2.
What template are you using to create the DVMTemplate?
Can you run a terminal in the DVMTemplate using 'qvm-run -a <blah-dvm>
xterm'?
If not, does the DVMTemplate start?
If it does, but the terminal doesnt appear, you can use 'sudo xl console
<blah-dvm>' in dom0 to connect to the running qube and see what the problem is.

unman

[Selton]

> I'm assuming this is 3.2.

You assume correct.

> What template are you using to create the DVMTemplate?

Currently fedora-25 (untouched from the qubes repo), I have tried fedor-24 and fedora-23 before as well as updated versions.

> Can you run a terminal in the DVMTemplate using 'qvm-run -a <blah-dvm> xterm'?

This works and I do get in a terminal in the running fedora-25-dvm internal template without problems. But even with the dvm template running and the terminal open trying to start programs / open files in a disposal VM fails in the same way. Can I go any further from here / do some useful troubleshooting in the templates console? Thanks for your help!

[zach.g...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, October 2, 2016 at 8:45:57 PM UTC-7, Chris Mays wrote:
> I just installed Qubes OS for the first time today, and am having troubles getting a disposable VM to run. The system menu for Firefox and XTerm just stall. Is there something I am missing?
>
> Regards

Bump for this, I have the same issue. Firefox and XTerm do not launch from menu, or from CLI inside an AppVM

[Selton]

Maybe this is related: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qubes-users/GCH3PIlGuq8

In my case i'm also using an AMD CPU. However the rest of Qubes runs okayish. (Some unexplained crashs once in a few hours but overall acceptable for a secure station which doesn't have to be a super stable and user friendly working horse. And it doesn't seem like there would be another feature which is per se not working like disposable VMs.)

If it is CPU related maybe it can be worked around? But maybe this is a wrong track.

[Selton]

By the way, in the screenshot is the error I get when I try to start a disp VM via command line from dom0 (it didn't occur to me that this might generate useful output when the other methods don't return anything).

[Unman]

Have a look at /var/log/libvirt/libxl.
If, as I suspect, you see "record truncated", it's a long standing bug
in Xen: , Qubes issue is still open.
If you dont see that post the relevant sections of the log

unman

[Selton]

I guess this could be the problem.

/var/log/libvirt/libxl/libxl-driver.log produces the following 4 lines for each try to start a disposable VM:

xc: error: X86_PV_VCPU_MSRS record truncated: length 8, min 9: Internal error
xc: error: Restore failed (0 = Success): Internal error
libxl: error: libxl_stream_read.c:749:libxl__xc_domain_restore_done: restoring domain: Success
libxl: error: libxl_create.c:1145:domcreate_rebuild_done: cannot (re-)build domain: -3

So I guess this means I'm out of luck here and no workaround available?

[Unman]

Although the bug still appears to be open it looks from the changelog
from Xen 4.9 that the issue with zero length records has been fixed.
Have you tried updating dom0?

[Selton]

> Although the bug still appears to be open it looks from the changelog
> from Xen 4.9 that the issue with zero length records has been fixed.
> Have you tried updating dom0?

I have and after that qubes wasn't even able to boot (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qubes-users/Sr_C3cVTaG4) so I'm a little worried about that option. Is there way to update dom0 with an way to easily fallback in case it goes wrong again?

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

I guess the above problem is related to the kernel version, not xen version.
You may try to update just xen packages (which is where the fix is):

sudo qubes-dom0-update --action=update 'xen*'

- --
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?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJZvEsGAAoJENuP0xzK19csGUEH/ixEKWfFwGgpMMhApOwmnj1M
NBGCcg2ds8CKmEmGreu6vwOL0y3W1oGK+gQIl4i/QB4Asct/GrpKjSDzlooVvg3S
P0uq2lkY0k77CF6IlcrUCukcU2kRevzEvq+ziqrYh5F8uwP7MG16lVw5hAfwDw3t
WRy5Pwedke/gCtXcDN03HCxJO8u8pducOPpDBqLrDSStcuBaw+yEwafP7C/XXaSb
7238XUDIBgcV0lkT/11JGqWdtnNEj7qQYFrQME/+/TFhX2StMI14QX9Eg5wCeVB2
98YMFE1nHrMMDT3qhdwcAOsPejARRo4RGFuh6ZNSjuLyzygcf8p/d3+4y9AtPAA=
=Zwm9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Selton]

> You may try to update just xen packages (which is where the fix is):
>
> sudo qubes-dom0-update --action=update 'xen*'

Okay, worked in that way that I'm still able to use qubes after the update and it eliminated the error line with the record truncated

>xc: error: X86_PV_VCPU_MSRS record truncated: length 8, min 9: Internal error

However, besides that my basic problem still persists in the exact same way. So I do get the same error from the screenshot above (exactly the same) when I try to start a dispVM and in the /var/log/libvirt/libxl/libxl-driver.log there are now the following 3 lines per try (instead of 4 before):

>xc: error: Restore failed (0 = Success): Internal error
>libxl: error: libxl_stream_read.c:749:libxl__xc_domain_restore_done: restoring domain: Success
>libxl: error: libxl_create.c:1145:domcreate_rebuild_done: cannot (re-)build domain: -3

I have tried deletion and recreation of the dispVM template several times as well as reboots. I also switched the dispVM template versions (fedora-23, 24 and 25) but without luck.

I guess this is some progress but unfortunately dispVMs are still not working.