repo qubes-dom0-current-testing broke copy between AppVM

[Glen H]

Hi,

I wanted to update from 4 RC4 to RC5 so I ran:

sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-current-testing

But that seems to have broken copy to another AppVM (from Nautilus). Perhaps I need to update the templates too but I'm not sure if I should be syncing up to "qubes-dom0-current-testing" or "qubes-dom0-current", please clarify (I want to be on RC5).

For FYI, is there anyway to downgrade back to "qubes-dom0-current" (or whatever state I was in before I updated)?

Thanks,

Glen

[799]

Hello Glen,

Am 07.03.2018 5:11 vorm. schrieb "Glen H" <glen....@gmail.com>:

Hi,

I wanted to update from 4 RC4 to RC5.

so I ran:

sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-current-testing

But that seems to have broken copy to another AppVM (from Nautilus).  Perhaps I need to update the templates too but I'm not sure if I should be syncing up to "qubes-dom0-current-testing" or "qubes-dom0-current", please clarify (I want to be on RC5).

You need to upgrade both, if the problem still exist it may be a bug.

Andrew wrote yesterday what the procedure looks like:

(...) Current users of Qubes 4.0-rc4 can upgrade in-place by downloading the latest updates from the testing repositories in both

[dom0][dom0-testing] and [TemplateVMs][domU-testing] (...)

For FYI, is there anyway to downgrade back to "qubes-dom0-current" (or whatever state I was in before I updated)?

I highly suggest to make a backup before running any upgrades.

With today harddrive capacity there is now reason not having a regular backup

[799]

[Yuraeitha]

I agree with [799], and this particular issue with out of sync VM's causing qvm-copy to stop working is also known too, so you can probably be reasonably sure what [799] suggested is correct, your updates are out of sync. So everything works as it's supposed, but you need to get everything back in sync in order to get it working.

I don't think it's a good idea to downgrade unless someone steps in to tell you exactly what to do, or if you find a very detailed guide (I don't think there is one available, and it would be tricky when it's different packages and different complexities, such a guide would have to cover many complex areas to be sure to cover everything). As [799] suggested, it's a very good idea to crate a backup before you run current-testing updates.

You could just download new clean templates and phase them out, but it requires moving all your AppVM's a few times to phase it all out, it'll take some work to do. But your issue is that dom0 still has the updates, and as long you can't revert dom0 changes, then downloading new clean templates won't work.

You can of course still backup all your AppVm's and perform a clean install, with new fresh dom0 and domU's (templates), this way you can get back to stable quite easily, and it'll probably be quicker at any rate, irregardless if you try to downgrade or not, and considering downgrading probably carries more risk than to go forwards and use current-resting once more, well, it isn't worth it.

In other words, your only solution is probably just that, forwards. Either backup AppVM's and re-install, or sync all the current-testing repo's at least once, before you go back to stable repositories (you have two choices, imho going the current-testing route is fine, but backup first anyway, it's always a good idea). So you can sync all your dom0 / domU's (templates) with current-testing, and then after that only run stable repository to slowly out-phase current-testing. Current-testing is typically maximum 14 days, so you should be back to normal after 14 days (in theory, I'm not an expert but a learner).

You also need to be careful about non-expired 48 hour caches, since you mixed up the repositories here, your cache expiration is probably not the same across the dom0 / domU's, so you need to take precaution against any complexities here. You can do that with the --refresh flag which ensures your cache is up-to-date with the online repository. I'm not sure why this isn't working in dom0 though, but as an alternative you can run --clean instead in dom0, which will do the same (and more, a bigger cleanup).

in dom0, run;
sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-current-testing --clean

in all fedora templates, run;
sudo dnf update --enablerepo=qubes-vm-*-current-testing --refresh

in all debian and whonix templates, edit this file
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/qubes-r*.list
and then update with
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Once you did that, everything should then be in sync, restart your Qubes system fully, and then after that only use stable again (until you one day decide to use current-testing, but remember they will come to you within 14 days anyway, assuming the updates work as intended).

Remember to revert the files in debian and whonix templates when you go back to stable repositories again.

Always, always, ALWAYS! <--- stressed! run the same repositories across the board of Qubes. The dom0 and domU's must use the same Qubes repositories. You just experienced first hand the consequences of not doing that, although it was a light issue and you can easily recover from it by sync'ing the repositories again.

Let us know if it works or not :)