update dom0 offline

[Wael Nasreddine]

Hello,

As I described in the other topic titled "How To Replace Libvirt Drivers"; Upon installation, I get the error `libvirtError.libvirt: libxenlight failed to create new domain “domain name”` and updating the system seems to have helped. I want to attempt to update all packages before continuing the initial_setup, so how can I update dom0 offline?

Another option I have is to perform a net-install, I tried using `https://mirrors.kernel.org/qubes/repo/yum/r4.0/current-testing/dom0/fc25/` as an additional repository in the installer but I got "Error setting up base repository".

Wael

[Yuraeitha]

Do you have any solid reasoning for suspecting these packages? It's not always the package itself that is the problem, but a package or a tie to another patckage, or that other package, which is causing the issue. Simply replacing libvirt probably won't do you much good, especially if you need to find all those possible dependencies on something so fundamental as libvirt in Qubes.

It might be better to first find out why it happens, and then perform a clean re-install.

Also Qubes 4 RC-3 will be out either tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or if freezing failed, then possibly next week. https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/releases/4.0/schedule/ It's uncertain for sure, however, you have reasonable chances are that it'll be out tomorrow.

However, are you sure you got VT-D enabled in your UEFI (BIOS)? You also enabled Virtualisation in general, in case the motherboard has a double enable/disable function like some boards do? Libvirt errors does sound like it could be related to missing hardware features that Qubes 4 requires.

Remember that Qubes 4 is much less happy with missing security features, compared to Qubes 3.2. You muight get Qubes 4 running without, but it will likely be ugly, i.e. like your libvirt errors.

There is even talks to prevent Qubes 4 to install at all if the hardware is not living up to the security requirements, in order to avoid situations like this. For example, something like that might even be in Qubes 4 RC-3 for all we know.

You made absolutely sure, that your hardware meets the requirements, and also absolutely sure, that all of them are enabled?

[Wael Nasreddine]

On Sunday, November 26, 2017 at 1:12:49 AM UTC-8, Yuraeitha wrote:
> On Saturday, November 25, 2017 at 6:33:29 PM UTC, Wael Nasreddine wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > As I described in the other topic titled "How To Replace Libvirt Drivers"; Upon installation, I get the error `libvirtError.libvirt: libxenlight failed to create new domain “domain name”` and updating the system seems to have helped. I want to attempt to update all packages before continuing the initial_setup, so how can I update dom0 offline?
> >
> > Another option I have is to perform a net-install, I tried using `https://mirrors.kernel.org/qubes/repo/yum/r4.0/current-testing/dom0/fc25/` as an additional repository in the installer but I got "Error setting up base repository".
> >
> > Wael
>
> Do you have any solid reasoning for suspecting these packages? It's not always the package itself that is the problem, but a package or a tie to another patckage, or that other package, which is causing the issue. Simply replacing libvirt probably won't do you much good, especially if you need to find all those possible dependencies on something so fundamental as libvirt in Qubes.
>
> It might be better to first find out why it happens, and then perform a clean re-install.

So after some 10 re-installs, I finally managed to get it error-free all the way. I do not know which package it is (although I can tell you libvirt was not updated) but there is definitely a broken package in RC2. I ended up brute-forcing the virt_mode to PV[0] in order to go through the setup without any errors; knowing how to switch the default to PV would have helped, unfortunately I'm fairely new to Qubes (first install). Once the initial setup was over, I performed a qubes-dom0-update with testing repo enabled, switched all VMs back to hvm and voila works like a charm.

>
> Also Qubes 4 RC-3 will be out either tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or if freezing failed, then possibly next week. https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/releases/4.0/schedule/ It's uncertain for sure, however, you have reasonable chances are that it'll be out tomorrow.
>

I'm sure RC-3 would work out of the box, too bad I got stubborn on getting it running this weekend :D

> However, are you sure you got VT-D enabled in your UEFI (BIOS)? You also enabled Virtualisation in general, in case the motherboard has a double enable/disable function like some boards do? Libvirt errors does sound like it could be related to missing hardware features that Qubes 4 requires.
>
> Remember that Qubes 4 is much less happy with missing security features, compared to Qubes 3.2. You muight get Qubes 4 running without, but it will likely be ugly, i.e. like your libvirt errors.
>
> There is even talks to prevent Qubes 4 to install at all if the hardware is not living up to the security requirements, in order to avoid situations like this. For example, something like that might even be in Qubes 4 RC-3 for all we know.

My hardware is good, but I do not have a TPM yet. I'm thinking of switching the motherboard/CPU with something more performant, maybe a Xeon based system but I want to play more with Qubes before I do that. Any recommendation on hardware?

>
> You made absolutely sure, that your hardware meets the requirements, and also absolutely sure, that all of them are enabled?

Yes :)

[0]: while true; do qvm-ls | grep -v NAME | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -I{} sudo qvm-prefs {} virt_mode pv; sleep 0.5; done