backup

[Gabriel]

Hi fellows,

I started using qubes a while ago and I have a question concerning backups.

What I want is a complete backup to a dedicated external USB HDD. I understand to achieve this all the VMs must be shut down.

Therefore when I plugged in the HDD I mounted it in dom0 under /mnt.

Questions:

1. When I ran Qubes VM Manager -> Backup VMs, I received an error message stating no place on device and a zero byte backup file. Permissions are OK, there's more than enough space on the HDD.

Any reasons why the backup did not succeed?

2. I tried running qvm-backup from the command line, which ran fine, no permission problems on the same HDD. However, the template VMs are not included by default and I saw no command-line option to automatically achieve this. Am I missing something here?

3. I know I can manually list all the VMs on the command line to be backed up, but I find that a bit awkward, so I tried this:

qvm-ls --raw-list | xargs qvm-backup /mnt/test/

but this threw a Python exception...

For now I resorted to typing all the VMs by hand ... not elegant.

Any help is appreciated.

Best,

Gabe

Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

[Jeremy Rand]

'Gabriel' via qubes-users:

> Hi fellows,
>
> I started using qubes a while ago and I have a question concerning backups.
> What I want is a complete backup to a dedicated external USB HDD. I understand to achieve this all the VMs must be shut down.
> Therefore when I plugged in the HDD I mounted it in dom0 under /mnt.

You can backup a subset of VM's from the GUI. I typically backup every
VM except the USB VM (with the external HDD attached to the USB VM and
mounted in a DispVM), under the assumption that if I'm ever restoring to
a fresh Qubes install, there will already be a USB VM there, so backing
up the USB VM isn't really needed.

Cheers,
-Jeremy

[Andrew David Wong]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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On 2016-09-27 06:59, 'Gabriel' via qubes-users wrote:
> Hi fellows,
>
> I started using qubes a while ago and I have a question concerning backups.
> What I want is a complete backup to a dedicated external USB HDD. I understand to achieve this all the VMs must be shut down.
> Therefore when I plugged in the HDD I mounted it in dom0 under /mnt.
>

This is fine as long as you trust the USB device you're attaching to dom0. If you don't, consider using a USB qube instead:

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/#creating-and-using-a-usb-qube

> Questions:
> 1. When I ran Qubes VM Manager -> Backup VMs, I received an error message stating no place on device and a zero byte backup file. Permissions are OK, there's more than enough space on the HDD.
> Any reasons why the backup did not succeed?
>

Are you sure you selected the correct device in the menu?

> 2. I tried running qvm-backup from the command line, which ran fine, no permission problems on the same HDD. However, the template VMs are not included by default and I saw no command-line option to automatically achieve this. Am I missing something here?
>

The RPM-managed TemplateVMs should normally not be backed up. Instead, you should clone them (if you can spare the drive space), make your customizations, then back up the clones.

> 3. I know I can manually list all the VMs on the command line to be backed up, but I find that a bit awkward, so I tried this:
> qvm-ls --raw-list | xargs qvm-backup /mnt/test/
>
> but this threw a Python exception...
>
> For now I resorted to typing all the VMs by hand ... not elegant.
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>

Try this:

$ qvm-backup /mnt/test/ `qvm-ls --raw-list`

You can also prepare a list of VMs (one VM name per line) as a file, then:

$ qvm-backup /mnt/test/ `cat vm_list.txt`

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

On 2016-09-27 06:59, 'Gabriel' via qubes-users wrote:

> Hi fellows,

>

> I started using qubes a while ago and I have a question concerning backups.

> What I want is a complete backup to a dedicated external USB HDD. I understand to achieve this all the VMs must be shut down.

> Therefore when I plugged in the HDD I mounted it in dom0 under /mnt.

>

>This is fine as long as you trust the USB device you're attaching to dom0. If you don't, consider using a USB qube instead:

>https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/#creating-and-using-a-usb-qube

The USB device is trsted but I'll consider the usb-cube too.

> Questions:

> 1. When I ran Qubes VM Manager -> Backup VMs, I received an error message stating no place on device and a zero byte backup file. Permissions are OK, there's more than enough space on the HDD.

> Any reasons why the backup did not succeed?

>

>Are you sure you selected the correct device in the menu?

There was only one option ....

> 2. I tried running qvm-backup from the command line, which ran fine, no permission problems on the same HDD. However, the template VMs are not included by default and I saw no command-line option to automatically achieve this. Am I missing something here?

>

>The RPM-managed TemplateVMs should normally not be backed up. Instead, you should clone them (if you can spare the drive space), make your customizations, then back up the clones.

Does this imply the AppVMs should be based upon the cloned VMs?

> 3. I know I can manually list all the VMs on the command line to be backed up, but I find that a bit awkward, so I tried this:

> qvm-ls --raw-list | xargs qvm-backup /mnt/test/

>

> but this threw a Python exception...

>

> For now I resorted to typing all the VMs by hand ... not elegant.

>

> Any help is appreciated.

>

Try this:

$ qvm-backup /mnt/test/ `qvm-ls --raw-list`

This one works nice, thank you.

Gabe

[Andrew David Wong]

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Hash: SHA512

On 2016-09-28 00:32, Gabriel wrote:
> On 2016-09-27 06:59, 'Gabriel' via qubes-users wrote:
>> 2. I tried running qvm-backup from the command line, which ran fine, no permission problems on the same HDD. However, the template VMs are not included by default and I saw no command-line option to automatically achieve this. Am I missing something here?
>>
>
>> The RPM-managed TemplateVMs should normally not be backed up. Instead, you should clone them (if you can spare the drive space), make your customizations, then back up the clones.
> Does this imply the AppVMs should be based upon the cloned VMs?
>

Correct.

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