Command Line in NetVM

[e...@eli.mattsdetour.com]

Hello,

I've just finally installed QubesOS on actual hardware on my Toshiba
Laptop. I previously had it installed in a VM. I am trying to get wireless
to work however I'm not sure if Quebes support that yet. I was thinking
about going into the NetVM and connecting to my Wifi from command line but
I can't figure out how to get the terminal. Could anyone point me in the
right Direction? Thanks.

-Eli

[Joanna Rutkowska]

Yes, wifi is supported, since day 1. Normally, you should be able to see
a NetworkManager icon of the netvm (so in a red rectangle) in your tray,
as illustrated on this screenshot:

http://qubes-os.org/Screenshots_files/snapshot6.png

If you don't see the NM's icon, then:
1) Check if your netvm is running (use qvm-ls or the qubes-manager)
2) Run the terminal in the netvm (qvm-run netvm gnome-terminal, or right
click on the netvm in the manager, and choose "Run command in the VM...)

3) Check if you can see your Wifi device in the netvm (lspci)
4) ... and check if you have the wifi interface (ifconfig), and whether
there are any wifi-related errors in dmesg. The latter might be caused
by Xen not getting enough continues memory for the netvm SWIOTLB buffer,
in which case the wifi driver wont load. In this case, try restarting
your system, or add more RAM :)

joanna.

[Marek Marczykowski]

On 14.06.2012 15:02, Joanna Rutkowska wrote:
> On 06/14/12 14:50, e...@eli.mattsdetour.com wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I've just finally installed QubesOS on actual hardware on my Toshiba
>> Laptop. I previously had it installed in a VM. I am trying to get wireless
>> to work however I'm not sure if Quebes support that yet. I was thinking
>> about going into the NetVM and connecting to my Wifi from command line but
>> I can't figure out how to get the terminal. Could anyone point me in the
>> right Direction? Thanks.
>>
> Yes, wifi is supported, since day 1. Normally, you should be able to see
> a NetworkManager icon of the netvm (so in a red rectangle) in your tray,
> as illustrated on this screenshot:
>
> http://qubes-os.org/Screenshots_files/snapshot6.png
>
> If you don't see the NM's icon, then:
> 1) Check if your netvm is running (use qvm-ls or the qubes-manager)
> 2) Run the terminal in the netvm (qvm-run netvm gnome-terminal, or right
> click on the netvm in the manager, and choose "Run command in the VM...)

Qubes-manager in beta3 doesn't support "Run command in the VM", this will be
available in next qubes release.

> 3) Check if you can see your Wifi device in the netvm (lspci)
> 4) ... and check if you have the wifi interface (ifconfig), and whether
> there are any wifi-related errors in dmesg. The latter might be caused
> by Xen not getting enough continues memory for the netvm SWIOTLB buffer,
> in which case the wifi driver wont load. In this case, try restarting
> your system, or add more RAM :)
>
> joanna.
>
>

--
Best Regards / Pozdrawiam,
Marek Marczykowski
Invisible Things Lab

[Marek Marczykowski]

> O.k.
> Thanks for the replies. I didn't know that wifi was supported. It works.
> Thanks Joanna.
> At Marek and Joanna, what if someone's hardware isn't supported, say a
> wifi card, and they wanted to manually install a driver for it into the
> NetVM is there no way to do that right now?

It is possible, I've described the procedure here some time ago (search the
archives). But the easier way is to just use newer kernel. We have up to 3.4.1
in our testing repos (actually not as stable as that released with beta3, but
still usable).