Qubes 4.0 rc3, Whonix template: update-command-not-found

[Fabrizio Romano Genovese]

Hello all,

This very very annoying thing happened to me also on Qubes 3.2. Essentially, on a whonix-based template, (whonix-ws or whonix-gw, doesn't really matter), every time I type something (aside of some basic commands such as sudo, firefox, ls etc) I receive the message:

"Could not find the database of available applications, run update-command-not-found as root to fix this"

If I try to give sudo update-command-not found then whonix tries to curl some files, but not having any connection (template vm) fails. The result of this is that I have to run this command directly in the interested appvm, EVERY TIME I start them up. Is there a way to make whonix communicate with the outside world, so that curl succeeds?

Cheers,
Fab

[awokd]

On Fri, January 5, 2018 11:11 pm, Fabrizio Romano Genovese wrote:

>
> This very very annoying thing happened to me also on Qubes 3.2.
> Essentially, on a whonix-based template, (whonix-ws or whonix-gw, doesn't
> really matter), every time I type something (aside of some basic commands
> such as sudo, firefox, ls etc) I receive the message:
>
> "Could not find the database of available applications, run
> update-command-not-found as root to fix this"

In 3.2, I opened a terminal on my whonix-ws template, typed "curl" and it
worked right away. If yours doesn't, you might want to reinstall the
template. Also, on 3.2 double-check to see if you whonix-ws and whonix-gw
templates are set to use sys-whonix for their netvm. (Does not apply to
4.0).

[Fabrizio Romano Genovese]

Yup, if you type curl it works, but you can't curl anything out of it because you don't have connection. To reproduce what I'm talking about, open a terminal in whonix-ws/gw and type some random stuff (like "sdshgow"). Press enter. Whonix will tell you

"Could not find the database of available applications, run update-command-not-found as root to fix this"

Equivalently, you may just directly try to type 'update-command-not-found' and find that the template tries to curl some files without success...

[awokd]

On Sat, January 6, 2018 1:19 am, Fabrizio Romano Genovese wrote:
> Yup, if you type curl it works, but you can't curl anything out of it

OK, I see what you mean. What are you trying to accomplish? If it's just a
one time file copy, you could use qvm-copy-to-vm to copy it to your
template from another VM that does have network access. If it's a curl you
want to run on every startup of a disposable VM, there should be some way
to script that. Be careful to not customize it too much though, because if
you make a change that affects Tor browser itself you might make it easily
fingerprintable.

[Fabrizio Romano Genovese]

Well, I'm not trying to accomplish nothing in particular, it's just that the template doesn't behave as it should: It asks me to run update-command-not-found to fix a problem, and I cannot do that because curl fails.

Sometimes, the fact that the template doesn't really distinguish between a command and random stuff typed on terminal gets in the way quite a lot. I remember, for instance, that I had enormous issues trying to install npm: npm installation is performed locally and I didn't know that at the time (I know, I'm a n00b), so I was trying to see what was going on. The output from whonix was always the same: run update-command-not-found.

Essentially what pisses me off is that I'm forced to work with a buggy terminal, which is not really a problem when you know what you are doing but it is a very big issue when you are doing something that requires some heuristics. So if there is a way to fix this I'd be superhappy :D

Cheers,
Fab