Attaching a webcam from sys-usb to other appvm

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46co2u+d7n...@guerrillamail.com

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Aug 2, 2016, 12:29:06 PM8/2/16
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Hi,

Is this possible and how can it be done? Unfortunately I didn't find any how to explaining this.


Thank you

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Andrew David Wong

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Aug 2, 2016, 7:20:04 PM8/2/16
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On 2016-08-02 09:29, 46co2u+d7n6f69py4nlk via qubes-users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is this possible and how can it be done? Unfortunately I didn't find any
> how to explaining this.
>
>
> Thank you
>

Sorry, that's not supported:

"Other devices, such as USB webcams, will also work, but they will be
accessible only from the USB qube itself, as explained above."

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/#tocAnchor-1-1-3

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

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Aug 2, 2016, 8:07:10 PM8/2/16
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On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 8:19 PM, Andrew David Wong <a...@qubes-os.org> wrote:
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On 2016-08-02 09:29, 46co2u+d7n6f69py4nlk via qubes-users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is this possible and how can it be done? Unfortunately I didn't find any
> how to explaining this.
>
>
> Thank you
>

Sorry, that's not supported:

"Other devices, such as USB webcams, will also work, but they will be
accessible only from the USB qube itself, as explained above."

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/#tocAnchor-1-1-3



but isn't the last paragraph of your link actually mentioning that a USB webcam can be "attached" to a "conferences qube", even if only under 3.2?

Well I do not have yet 3.2, but this seems interesting. May you please elaborate a little bit about the use cases of this last paragraph?

It seems something totally different from the old USB controller assignment. So what is that? Or even more interesting; for what purpose may we use it?

Best
Fran

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

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Aug 2, 2016, 10:21:11 PM8/2/16
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On 2016-08-02 17:07, Franz wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 8:19 PM, Andrew David Wong <a...@qubes-os.org>
> wrote:
>
> On 2016-08-02 09:29, 46co2u+d7n6f69py4nlk via qubes-users wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Is this possible and how can it be done? Unfortunately I didn't find
>>>> any how to explaining this.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you
>>>>
>
> Sorry, that's not supported:
>
> "Other devices, such as USB webcams, will also work, but they will be
> accessible only from the USB qube itself, as explained above."
>
> https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/usb/#tocAnchor-1-1-3
>
>
>
>> but isn't the last paragraph of your link actually mentioning that a USB
>> webcam can be "attached" to a "conferences qube", even if only under
>> 3.2?
>
>> Well I do not have yet 3.2, but this seems interesting. May you please
>> elaborate a little bit about the use cases of this last paragraph?
>
>> It seems something totally different from the old USB controller
>> assignment. So what is that? Or even more interesting; for what purpose
>> may we use it?
>
>> Best Fran
>

Ah, yes, you're right. I overlooked this new feature introduced in 3.2 because
I haven't had a chance to try it yet. (Also, I don't know whether the OP is on
3.1 or 3.2-rcX, and of course 3.2-rcX is still an RC.)

So, yes, beginning in 3.2, it should be possible to do this. The use case, as
far as I can tell, would be as described in that paragraph: something like
attaching a webcam to a "conference" VM for the purpose of the
teleconferencing. You should be able to use it for that and similar purposes.

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
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46h6sk+9ay...@guerrillamail.com

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Aug 3, 2016, 2:35:18 PM8/3/16
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Thank you for the reply. I tried to follow the instructions on the documentation (as illustrated for the conference AppVM) however that does not work. I get a message stating - ERROR: qubes-usb-proxy not installed in the VM - which is not true, I've installed the package and the message is still displayed.

What I'm doing wrong?

Franz

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Aug 3, 2016, 2:47:49 PM8/3/16
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On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 3:35 PM, 46h6sk+9aybfqrmo0zwg via qubes-users <qubes...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Thank you for the reply. I tried to follow the instructions on the documentation (as illustrated for the conference AppVM) however that does not work. I get a message stating - ERROR: qubes-usb-proxy not installed in the VM - which is not true, I've installed the package and the message is still displayed.

What I'm doing wrong?



May you confirm you are using Qubes release 3.2?



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46h6sk+9ay...@guerrillamail.com

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Aug 3, 2016, 2:50:03 PM8/3/16
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Yes, I'm using Qubes 3.2RC2

Andrew David Wong

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Aug 3, 2016, 10:10:38 PM8/3/16
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On 2016-08-03 11:35, 46h6sk+9aybfqrmo0zwg via qubes-users wrote:
> Thank you for the reply. I tried to follow the instructions on the
> documentation (as illustrated for the conference AppVM) however that does
> not work. I get a message stating - ERROR: qubes-usb-proxy not installed in
> the VM - which is not true, I've installed the package and the message is
> still displayed.
>
> What I'm doing wrong?
>

Which version of qubes-usb-proxy do you have?

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

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Aug 4, 2016, 6:41:15 AM8/4/16
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On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 06:35:16PM +0000, 46h6sk+9aybfqrmo0zwg via qubes-users wrote:
> Thank you for the reply. I tried to follow the instructions on the documentation (as illustrated for the conference AppVM) however that does not work. I get a message stating - ERROR: qubes-usb-proxy not installed in the VM - which is not true, I've installed the package and the message is still displayed.
>
> What I'm doing wrong?

Do you have it installed in both sys-usb and target AppVM? Or rather -
respective template(s)?

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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46l47g+27i...@guerrillamail.com

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Aug 4, 2016, 10:03:06 AM8/4/16
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Hi,

I finally managed to put this to work, the missing part was to install the qubes-usb-proxy also on the sys-usb as well (mea culpa) :)
I'm now able to attach the webcam to any AppVM, unfortunately the only caveat is that when I unassigned the device from the AppVM back to the sys-usb I'm not able to get the camera working again on the sys-usb - the device doesn't seem to be present.

Is this the expected behavior?

Thank you.

Marek Marczykowski-Górecki

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Aug 4, 2016, 10:28:58 AM8/4/16
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On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 02:02:59PM +0000, 46l47g+27idcs742td9g via qubes-users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I finally managed to put this to work, the missing part was to install the qubes-usb-proxy also on the sys-usb as well (mea culpa) :)
> I'm now able to attach the webcam to any AppVM, unfortunately the only caveat is that when I unassigned the device from the AppVM back to the sys-usb I'm not able to get the camera working again on the sys-usb - the device doesn't seem to be present.

Indeed this is how it is working now. Mostly
because device is still connected to usbip-host driver and isn't
switched back to the original one.

> Is this the expected behavior?

That's a good question. I think the most common use case would be to
either:
- use device directly in sys-usb all the time - for example if you use
a different mechanism to make it available to other VMs - like
qvm-block, or simply mount it there and copy to/from files using
qubes file copy
- don't use it in sys-usb at all and only attach to some VM when needed
- like for webcam - you don't have your video call credentials in
sys-usb, but in some other dedicated VM

Generally it is based on assumption that sys-usb serves only as an
interface to the devices, but all the data is stored in some AppVM.

If this is correct, switching device driver back to the original one is
just waste of time.

Joanna, Andrew, what do you think?

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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Andrew David Wong

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Aug 4, 2016, 9:31:49 PM8/4/16
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I agree. We should assume that sys-usb is compromised (due to the existence of
things like BadUSB). We certainly don't want the user's webcam spying on him
or her from sys-usb, so the safe default would be not to switch the device
driver back to sys-usb (at least not without explicit user consent).

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