Qubes 4.0-rc5 Some issues

[Evastar]

Hello, Thanks for this great update! I found at the issue tracker that Qubes Manager from 3.2 was ported to Q4.0 and because of this I thought it is the time to migrate or try to migrate to new Qubes version.

Issues:

1) After installation done, "usb-qube" does not run. Because of this(?) I lose access to my mouse at last step of setup.

2) Qubes manager. Unfortunately, it does not refresh list automatically :( Maybe it must support F5 hotkey for refresh? Maybe it's possible to improve sorting performance? Very low performance in all tasks and freezing :(

3) Issue on boot: FAILED load kernel modules

4) Issue with new "storage manager plugin" at system trey: it DOES NOT always refresh the list. How to refresh it automatically? Right now I have "untrusted" vm running, but it's not on the list at this new plugin. Therefore, it's not possible to attach something to this VM.

5) I have issue with disk mounting. I tried to restore my buckups from Windows disk. It was possible to attach it and work with it until I got some error on restoring process. Then I tried to close/stop restore process and Qubes manager without results. Then I kill it and after this it's impossible to attach this Windows disk to any Qube. I tried to reboot/shutdown and got message about "read/only" after that I can attach the disk, but it does not mount at the Qube. How to fix this? :(

But happy that performance at Qubes 4.0 is better than I have at my 3.2 with fixed from intel processors issue.

p.s. What is about Qubes Users community on Reddit?

Thanks

[Evastar]

Because I do not have access to Windows disk after I attach it to any Qube it's impossible for me to migrate, because I can not restore my backup :(

[Unman]

2. This is deliberate to try to reduce some of the problems with the old
QM. It's not ideal if you use the QM, but the issues are known.

3. This was present in 3.2 also. You ignored it there - ignore it in
4.0.

4. Again, it's a known issue.

5. What error message do you get when attaching the disk?
When you say you can attach the disk, what happens exactly? Have you
checked that the disk appears under /dev and tried mounting it manually?


I know the fact that issues are known is small comfort but it should be
*some* comfort.

[Andrew David Wong]

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On 2018-03-08 17:20, 'Evastar' via qubes-users wrote:
> p.s. What is about Qubes Users community on Reddit?
>

I'm afraid I don't understand the question, but does this answer it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org

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[Yuraeitha]

I believe he means whether it's an official place or an unofficial one. I had same confusement when I first started out with Qubes. If a user isn't a proponel Reddit user, it might be tricky to realize that Reddit is mainly self-organized communities. So it then might become a question for some people if Qubes Reddit belongs to The Qubes OS Project or not. While anyone sticking around long enough will realize it's not though, but yeah, I'm not really sure if this would be considered an issue, but it might confuse new people at least.

[Evastar]

2all: thanks fro help and answers

Unman, About 5. I attach the disk without any errors from plugin and from console with qvm-block. After attached I see new device at /dev/xvdi.

"mount /dev/xvdi" and got this:

1) Unclean file system (0, 1)

the file system wasn't safety closed on Windows. Fixing.

2) Again the same mount command:

Mount is denied because the NTFS volume is already exclusively opened.

The volume may be already mounted, or another software may use it which

could be identified for example by the help of the 'fuser' command.

[user@disp5728 dev]$ fuser --all xvdi

/dev/xvdi:

or what to do?..

Andrew, Yes, I searched for the Reddit where it's possible to receive help like at this maillist. :) Thanks.

[Evastar]

I tried to attach (and mount) other usb flash drive (first one was hdd). It give me the same results:

Mount is denied because the NTFS volume is already exclusively opened.

The volume may be already mounted, or another software may use it which

could be identified for example by the help of the 'fuser' command.

But i'm not sure that now "xvdi" is new flash drive, because after some attach/deattacking it does not show at AppVM at all, but plugin show the device as attached. 

p.s. Also I found never end waiting circle show at second Q plugin at system tray near "personal" vm. After "mouse hover" only this peronal vm have items with "logs" at the menu. But if I click to show logs - it never show... 

[Evastar]

New error:

I guess that I must update template fedora-26 and maybe error will be fixed. At the end of the process: 

Cleanup: ..... some files and lines ... disk I/O error... Read-only file system.. Packages: write failed for page 1 etc.... :(

[Evastar]

Something strange is going on. I can not run fedora-26 template terminal. Template is clean 4.0 template, before I only install nano on it. Start/resume also does not work. I get message about "halted". It's also harder to get the real state of app vms& templates, because Qubes Manager is freezen. Now I see fedora-26 with yellow mark. 

Maybe I must reinstall the whole system and try again or It's too early to migrate from 3.2 :(

Maybe maybe something with my ssd disk? But guess it fine, maybe filesystem incorrectly work...

[Unman]

That answer invariably means that the drive is *already* mounted
elsewhere.
Can you reinsert the drive and check in sys-usb fdisk -l.
Then attach to a qube: check dmesg, mount, and fdisk.
Then try to mount - check logs for relevant entries.

[Yuraeitha]

That eternal spinning circular issue in the Qubes widget should be okay, it's known (Qubes-users-mail-list and github) and appears to be only graphical (not performance issue). It's also a very new issue. The worst part of it seems to be the inability to properly close the VM's. You need to type qvm-shutdown vm-name in dom0 for that. Or you can stop it from the VM's own terminal, though it takes some time to shutdown that way.

The Qube Manager was never meant to be used with Qubes 4 onwards, it was only brought back because of requests for it, but that doesn't mean they integrated the Qube Manager into Qubes 4, it's sort of an "addon" now. It also has issues, as unman mentioned up above, it's likely a lower priority to get the Qube Manager to work. Also Qubes 4 specific features isn't added to the Qube Manager. Furthermore there is the possibility that future Qubes releases won't be added to the Qube Manager either (but who knows). One of the known issues with the Qube Manager is the status icons for individual VM's don't update. So if you opened the Qube Manager while a VM was starting to shutting down, then it will appear as if it's yellow status. Try click on it (selecting), or close down the Qube Manager and open it again. It changed status, right?

You don't need to use the Qube Manager, it's a relic for old habits. If you get get used to it, just stop using the Qube Manager altogether, Qubes 4 was originally designed to be without the Qube Manager to begin with. It's just about getting used to the shift.

About the remaining issues, it seems a bit odd though. But the above is clarified now, so that you don't have to worry about those at least.

[Yuraeitha]

On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 2:09:23 PM UTC+1, Evastar wrote:

There are a few places I suspect causing your start of VM's issues:

- Did you by any chance backup-restore old templates from Qubes 3.2.? That won't work.
- Your system might have issues with HVM/PVH, maybe try lower it to HVM or PV. Qubes 3.2. used PV virt_mode, so PVH/HVM might be what is causing your issues.
- Maybe you forgot to update the templates the same time you updated dom0 (and vice versa), keep them in sync with each others at all time.
- Did you by any chance use the testing repositories? If so, be sure you did so on all your templates, including dom0. Never just do it on one or a few, all of them must be kept in sync with each others.

It's easier to mess-up the updates sync in Qubes 4, than it was in Qubes 3.2. That might possible be changed later to improve that, but for the time being it's important you keep tabs on your update method to keep everything in proper sync with each others. Also I believe that restoring old Qubes 3.2. templates can't be done with the old Qubes codes in them, you need new fresh ones made for Qubes 4.

Actually, this whole template/update user mistake issue thing, can also possibly explain your qvm-block issues, since the Qubes tools won't be working properly then. But it can of course also be a separate issue altogether. Did you ensure you made no mistakes with updates across Qubes, restarted Qubes fully after Qubes updates, and also did not restore old templates from Qubes 3.2.?

[Evastar]

Sorry, send to Unman private. I use web interface now, because all my previous emails close IMAP support :(((( 

Repost to group:

Qubes Reinstalled. I can confirm that at the first step user always lose access to mouse in case of sys-usb created, but not running.

About not syncing template & dom0. No, it's not the reason, because right now rc5 does not have any dom0 updates at all.

Right now, after fresh install I can update fedora-26 (done). But still not seeing my attached disk at nautilus. I check it with fdisk -l at untrasted when it's attached:

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type

/dev/xvdi1 1936269394 3772285809 1836016416 875.5G 4f QNX4.x 3rd part

/dev/xvdi2 1917848077 2462285169 544437093 259.6G 73 unknown

/dev/xvdi3 1818575915 2362751050 544175136 259.5G 2b unknown

/dev/xvdi4 2844524554 2844579527 54974 26.9M 61 SpeedStor

Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary. (RED COLOR)

Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary. (RED COLOR)

Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary. (RED COLOR)

Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary. (RED COLOR)

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

But disk is 3 Tb ! : (at the header from report) Disk /dev/xvdi: 2.7 TiB, 3000457232384 bytes,

Disklabel type: dos And it's one disk without 875.5G parts....

Why the system can not mount it? :(

The second question.

You wrote that old qubes version templates does not supported. Is it related also to Windows&Qubes Tools? I have Windows template and want to restore it and use it...

Thanks

About Qubes Manager. Really, I do not know how to use the system without full list of all VMs with some advanced sorting, searching features. Actually, I'm searching it, sorting it by status and use "Run" menu to run gnome-terminal or some other application (90% of time), another 5% use case of Qubes Manager is checking updates and change settings of VM that I found at list. It's UX. I do not know how you want go forward without this... Some functions can be reduced, but stay without it? Do not know how... --- p.s. Disk described before attached and unattached well (but not mounted). It's NTFS disk as I remember.

[Yuraeitha]

Yes old Windows standalone should work, but you might need to tweak it a bit. It must be running in HVM mode (Not PV or PVH mode). Also I'm not sure if this got fixed, but dyanmic Memory disabled, and give it some decent amount of RAM to run in stable, i.e. 4GB RAM or so. It seems putting the Windows page file (like Linux SWAP) to a fixed size instead of dynamic, prevents crashes or minimizes crashes. The Qubes tools from Qubes 3.2. more or less "roughly" works in Qubes 4 as well, but it's not all perfect. For example you need to prevent the Qubes network windows service from running (disable it comnpletely), restart the Windows VM, and then put a fixed IP address back to Qubes. This restores your internet access. From there, there are other minor issues, but it's generally usable. Test it a bit to see if keeps being stable.

Another suggestion about the mounting issue, might be that the drive was formated in a special way. For example it might require special mount flags to be added, or maybe the Linux NTFS driver just can't read this type of NTFS variant, which seems to happen sometimes by the looks of older threads in other Linux distro's on the search engine. Try find another NTFS drive, if the other NTFS works, then it's probably the special NTFS format that is messing it up. To which you may have found your answer, but from there you need new solutions. I.e. how to fix that, and questions arrise, like moving files/backup files, and reformat the drive? etc.

About the Qubes Manager (renamed Qube Manager in Qubes 4 btw), it's okay if you use it, I'm not going to try tell you otherwise. All I do is raise perspectives to think about. For example, one perspective here is that I got so many AppVM's and templates at this point, that it'd be completely bungos for me to have any sort of list, because no matter how I sort it, it'd be a mess. Yet I manage these AppVM's just fine too without the Qube Manager. I use the new Qubes 4 widget tool to keep watch on which AppVM's is currently running, and to shut one of them down (albeit the current widget bug makes it a bit hard, but it's a very new bug, it'll be fixed at some point son hopefully, otherwise we can't close our AppVM's normally without opening a terminal every time to do it). I use a handful of 7 XFCE4 Launcher plugins, and put all my browsers in one launcher, coloured and re-named, added good looking colored icons, etc. to make it look good/stylish as well. Did the same for File-Managers in all my AppVM's where I might need a File-Manager, same with other things. I have one for all VM terminals too and other system settings, and yet another one for mixed things, and another for my scripts that are not keybinded. The only thing I find lacking about this is an ability to keep watch over total CPU/RAM use. Albeit for free diskspace I just use the XFCE4 "Free Disk Checker" plugin. The plugin's to check CPU/RAM on the other hand doesn't work because only some of it runs in dom0, while the rest in the VM's. For example you can run "xentop" in the dom0 terminal to get used resources listed, but it isn't as easily overview as Qube Manager though, for keeping track of resources the Qube manager might still work better.

As for system updates I made my own script to update everything, but it's not ready to be published/shared yet, it needs quality and security review, and I need to iron out some concerns I have with it and fix it up a bit, to be sure it works as intended. So it won't be shared just yet.

[eva...@protonmail.com]

Sorry, I tried other usd drive with NTFS and ExFAT and no results! It does not mound automatically and I do not know how to mount all this drives. The problem not only with usb drive, but also with HDD. Maybe my template lack some driver that support NTFS? Hot to check his? I guess it's possible, because current fedora-26 image from rc5 come without 'nano'...
How to check this and fix this issue :((((
Thanks!

[eva...@protonmail.com]

After restore from Q3.2 buckup I have all network VM doubled with "disp-" prefix? Why? Is it safe to remove them all? All of them have 0.0 MiB size reported at Qube manager.

[awokd]

Thought fedora-26 had native NTFS support but you could try debian-9
instead. In either case, are you following the steps here?
https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/#r40