How to Backup Qubes Using New USB Hard Drive

[mojosam]

How to Backup Qubes Using New USB Hard Drive

I'd like to backup my VMs to an external USB hard drive. I have a couple of questions not answered by these pages:

<https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/backup-restore/>
and
<https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/>

The drive is a new Seagate 1.5TB hard drive. It's a tiny thing that gets its power off of the USB bus. Apparently Seagate has already installed their backup program, which runs in both Mac and Windows.

If I'm going to use this drive, I assume that I want to delete that program and any other crapware that Seagate might have put on there. Also, I don't know which disk format they're using. I doubt it's something that Qubes or Linux would find ideal.

To start, where do I want to attach the drive? Qubes has automatically attached it to Dom0, but I doubt that I want to format it from there.

Does one of the other VMs already have something like gparted installed, or will I need to download that?

What file format should I use?

I think that's the extent of my questions. I might think of some more as I work through this process the first time. Thank you for any insight or enlightenment you can provide.

[Benjamin Richter]

The short answer is: You do not need to do anything with the disk. Just connect it, as you noticed it gets attached to dom0. Then use the Qubes manager to backup your VMs, they will be stored in one compressed file, so the disk format doesn't matter much.

That's all.

[Andrew David Wong]

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On 2016-12-25 20:08, mojosam wrote:
> How to Backup Qubes Using New USB Hard Drive
>
> I'd like to backup my VMs to an external USB hard drive. I have a
> couple of questions not answered by these pages:
>
> <https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/backup-restore/> and
> <https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/>
>
> The drive is a new Seagate 1.5TB hard drive. It's a tiny thing
> that gets its power off of the USB bus. Apparently Seagate has
> already installed their backup program, which runs in both Mac and
> Windows.
>
> If I'm going to use this drive, I assume that I want to delete
> that program and any other crapware that Seagate might have put on
> there. Also, I don't know which disk format they're using. I doubt
> it's something that Qubes or Linux would find ideal.
>
> To start, where do I want to attach the drive? Qubes has
> automatically attached it to Dom0, but I doubt that I want to
> format it from there.

I strongly recommend using a USB qube, if you can:

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

If you have no choice, then connecting the drive directly to dom0 may
be OK, as long as you fully trust it and never connect it to anything
else. (If the drive is malicious, then it may have already compromised
dom0.)

> Does one of the other VMs already have something like gparted
> installed, or will I need to download that?
>

The standard tools will be available in a VM based on the default
Fedora template. However, if you prefer additional tools, you should
be able to easily find and install them from the Fedora repos.

> What file format should I use?
>

You mean filesystem? It depends on your needs. If you just want
something that's well-supported on Qubes and Linux in general, I
suggest Ext3.

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

Andrew:

Thank you for clarifying this. What you said is all in the documentation that I had already read, but I got lost trying to put it into perspective.

The complicating factor is that I have a USB keyboard and mouse plugged into a KVM switch, which is plugged into the computer. I need to use a USB keyboard, because it's ergonomic. I know that I can theoretically get a USB-to-PS/2 converter, but then I couldn't plug the keyboard into my KVM switch.

So not only do I have the keyboard and mouse talking directly to dom0, but I also have the KVM switch talking to it, plus any USB devices I recklessly plug into that. I knew it wasn't ideal, but it's what I have.

Making a USB qube does appear to be the right approach here. Fortunately, I have two USB controllers in this machine. So here's what I'm thinking of doing. Let me know if it is correct.

1) First, I should make a USB qube that talks to USB controller #1. I allow this qube to talk to dom0. I will plug my KVM switch into that. This allows the keyboard and mouse to access dom0. Unfortunately, it also allows the KVM switch access to dom0. If I make a habit of not plugging any other USB devices into that switch, I suppose that's a relatively low risk situation. There really shouldn't be any other USB devices that need to be on the switch, so this shouldn't be a problem. Am I correct in thinking that I can base this qube on the Fedora Minimal template?

2) Second, I should make another USB qube, and this one talks to USB controller #2. This one will never talk to dom0. I'll plug all sorts of USB crap into this guy, including my backup drive. Can I get away with basing this qube on Fedora Minimal as well?

Please set me straight on anything I've misunderstood. Thanks.

[Andrew David Wong]

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The setup sounds reasonable (though, FWIW, I gave up on trying to get
a working KVM-switch setup with Qubes years ago, but YMMV).

As for whether to use Fedora-minimal for the USB qubes: You may find
that things don't work as expected (most likely due to missing
packages), so either be prepared to do a lot of troubleshooting on
your own, or just use the default, full template.

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

Andrew:

Success! Everything works now.

When I sat down to do this, I realized that I actually only needed one USB qube, and that's the one that I do not want talking to dom0. The keyboard and mouse are already talking to dom0, which I don't want to change. It's all of the other USB devices that I want to send elsewhere.

So I set it all up as described above and in the documentation, and it's all working now. I did the backup and tested the restore from backup. Everything appears to be OK.

Thank you for your help.