Q: LV (disk) as fake USB stick?

[Ulrich Windl]

Hi!

I wonder: Some stupid installer insists on installing on a USB stick, not to a disk or partition.
If I boot the installer as VM (I did that already), can I fake a LV (logical volume) as USB stick for the VM? I don't want to connect an USB stick just to run some VM from that stick...
And: If so, is it also possible to fake USB IDs like manufacturer#, product#, serial# (and maybe other USB identificators)?

Regards,
Ulrich

[Catacombs]

Not sure I grasp where you are, what your hardware is like, and what you consider successful.


Let me say that another way. I suspect you are trying to install Qubes OS in conjunction with some other OS on the same computer.

I view the install of Qubes. Qubes prefers to be the sole occupant of the computers hard drive. Other means of installing Qubes are more difficult. Like trying to have more than one OS on the same computer is problematic.

Let me guess you have one OS (like Windows or Linux) and the installer you are using is Rufus or Balena Etcher? Which installs to like a USB key. One would not install Qubes from one hard drive partition to another Partition on the same drive. Not saying it is not possible, just more difficult than I understand how to accomplish.

Then one would boot from that USB key, which has Qubes on it. Qubes on the USB key has its own installer which would prefer to clobber whatever you have on the hard drive and write itself onto that hard drive (preferably a SSD).

Anyway. You may trying to do something more clever than I know about.

So if what I write only reveals my ignorance, and is of no help. Please tell us the Installer you are using.

Perhaps. Consider - How Qubes achieves it’s Security. First it wants to protect itself from interference from other programs, as much as possible. So it installs ‘bare metal’. It wants to install a Xen Hypervisor directly on the hard drive. The Qubes installer (The installer that gets started after one boots Qubes that is on the USB) will want to install it’s own boot sector on the drive. It will offer to encrypt the hard drive and wants you to give it a password for the encryption. It took me a few trials to get the partition to where the installer was happy. Something about clicking on manual. Recovering space. Then pick options where it will install several different Qubes with different OS’s in them. Like Fedora. Debian. Whonix. Someplace in the install the installer will want you to give it an account name and a login password. Takes awhile for the Qubes installer to run.

Each of the Qubes which are initially installed will run as a secure virtual machine, running on top of the Xen Hypervisor. So other software on the computer might cause a security problem which the creators of Qubes might not expect and thereby prevent.

I apologize to OP if I am actually not being useful. There are other variations to doing the install. I just took what I thought was the most direct to getting Qubes onto my computer. Making it the sole occupant of the hard drive. Actually. I used an external DVD and burned a DVD of the Qubes iso I downloaded and installed from that.

Keep in mind. No matter how careful you are. You can lose all the other info on the computer you are trying to install to. Back that up. Preferably several times before starting on this adventure.

And someone more knowledgeable will soon come along and tell you why I am wrong.

[Steve Coleman]

Spoofing the hardware information (e.g. lshw, hdparam, lspci, etc) of a virtual drive is going to be difficult. As an alternative you might want to play with installing it on an actual USB stick and then clone that partition over to your virtual drive. If the software then refuses to run because it realizes that the volume identifiers changed then you may be out of luck, unless you are up to patching the binary. But you will never know unless you try.