Installing linux tools in an HVM

[Micah Lee]

I've created an HVM and installed Debian in it. I see instructions for
how to install Qubes tools if you have a Windows HVM, but how can I
install them in Linux?

--
Micah Lee

[Joanna Rutkowska]

Well, when it comes to Linux we really don't officially support any
"Qubes Linux Tools" that one could download and readily install in such
Linux-based HVM. Rather we expect users to use our Qubes-optimized
Linux-based templates to be used as a basis for Linux-based VMs. We
currently only ship templates based on Fedora (currently on FC18, in the
Qubes R2RC1 it will be based on FC20), but it is possible to build a
template based on other distro:

http://wiki.qubes-os.org/trac/wiki/BuildingNonFedoraTemplate

So, just out of curiosity -- why would you want to do that (Install your
own Linux distro and create Qubes VMs based on it)? Remember that most
of the distro-cusomitzations (or feel) is lost on Qubes, because e.g.
Linux AppVMs do not run any Desktop Environment, etc. Essentially, the
only reason I see for using a different distro might be a different
package manager. Something else?

joanna.

[Abel Luck]

For me, I need to use other distro HVMs for development purposes.

* various projects require specific distros to build on
* when admining/deploying a remote several its useful to configure it locally
in an HVM first

It would still be nice to get copy past support etc in these vms.

~abel

[Joanna Rutkowska]

I think the major problem with "basic Qubes support" (i.e. copy and
paste, file copy between VMs, so qrexec without seamless GUI) for
generic Linux HVMs would be the problem of packaging. Everything else
should "just work", I think.

joanna.

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

AFAIR someone on mailing list is working on debian packages, check qubes-devel
archive.

--
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?

[Joanna Rutkowska]

So, we would generally be open to making such tools available and
down-loadable (e.g. via our yum.qubes-os.org server, just like it is the
case with Windows Tools) if somebody could maintain versions for
specific distros. A potential solution to just distribute (expose to
HVM) these tools as .tgz and having the user then doing ./configure &&
make in the HVM is not a good way IMHO, because of (potentially many)
differences between distros, such as e.g. systemd vs. init.d scripts,
and probably some others. In other words such Linux Tools would need to
be always tested and packaged for specific distro/familiy of distro.

joanna.

[Micah Lee]

On 04/01/14 04:52, Abel Luck wrote:
> For me, I need to use other distro HVMs for development purposes.
>
> * various projects require specific distros to build on
> * when admining/deploying a remote several its useful to configure it locally
> in an HVM first
>
> It would still be nice to get copy past support etc in these vms.
>
> ~abel

Same here. I have several development projects that assume you're
running Debian or Ubuntu to install the dependencies. I also just come
from .deb-land and am more familiar with it than with Fedora.

There's also a project that I'm working on that uses vagrant to deploy
an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS VM in VirtualBox and initializes it, so that all
developers will be be working on the same system. Since vagrant doesn't
seem possible to use in Qubes (until Xen supports something likes nested
VMs), I'm trying to emulate it to the best I can by using an Ubuntu
12.04 LTS HVM that I work in.

Since I'd like to have copy/paste and to be able to resize my terminal
window, I've created an ssh-bounce AppVM that has networking between my
non-Fedora HVMs so I can ssh into them. It mostly works, but I'm having
trouble getting my changes to stick in my firewallvm with the
qubes_firewall_user_script, but that's a different post.

--
Micah Lee

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

For now (until proper debian packages will be available) you can use standard
Fedora AppVM, with chroot debian/ubuntu environment (prepared with
debootstrap). I've done this few times and it works pretty well.
If you have preinstalled system image, simply mount it in some directory and
chroot into it (mount /sys and /proc there first).

[tim.t...@gmail.com]

I haven't tested this yet!!!!

I just wrote it yesterday, but here is a python script that when run in Debian will build an ISO with the .deb files created by Davith...

You will also have to download Davith's gpg key from here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qubes-devel/Jdqd_Cn1Gwg

Tim

[tim.t...@gmail.com]

#!/usr/bin/python
#qubes-tools-build
import os,sys,subprocess

def printHelp():
print("""

#qubes-tools-build [OPTIONS]

This is a tool to build the .deb packages required by qubes-tools-install. In order to install the qubes vmside utilities in debian, you should first run qubes-tools-build in some throw-away debian HVM, you will now have an .iso file.

THIS FILE MUST BE COPIED TO AN APPVM!!!!!

Once you have copied the iso to an appvm you can use in dom0 as follows:

$ qvm-start appvm --cdrom=debian-qubes-tools-build-vm:/home/user/qubes-tools-debian/qubes-tools-debian.iso

Options

--help Print this message.
""")

if "--help" in sys.argv or "-h" in sys.argv or "help" in sys.argv:
printHelp()
sys.exit()

if not os.geteuid() == 0:
sys.exit("This script must be run as root.")

print("Ensuring that the build-depends are installed.")
subprocess.call(["apt-get","install","-qqy","git","git-buildpackage","quilt","libxen-dev","genisoimage"])

print("Importing Davith's GPG key.")
subprocess.call(["gpg","--import","davith-qubes-debian-key.asc"])

def cloneRepo(repoURL):
subprocess.call(["git","clone",repoURL])

repos = ["qubes-core-vchan-xen","qubes-linux-kernel","qubes-linux-utils","qubes-core-agent-linux","qubes-gui-common"]

for repo in repos:
cloneRepo("http://dsg.is/qubes/"+repo+".git")

cwd = os.getcwd()
for repo in repos:
os.chdir(os.path.join(cwd,repo))
subprocess.call(["git","checkout","-b","upstream","remotes/origin/upstream"])
subprocess.call(["git","checkout","master"])
subprocess.call(["git-buildpackage","--git-upstream-tag=v%(version)s","-us","-uc"])

# Create an ISO containing the newly built deb files.
os.chdir(cwd)
debfiles = []
for file in os.listdir(cwd):
if file.endswith(".deb"):
debfiles.append(file)
subprocess.call(["genisoimage","-o","qubes-tools-debian.iso"]+debfiles)

[tim.t...@gmail.com]

If you wait about 72 hours I should have this up in a git repository and working properly(to the extent that Davith's deb files work...

Tim

[Micah Lee]

On 04/01/14 13:54, tim.t...@gmail.com wrote:
> If you wait about 72 hours I should have this up in a git repository and working properly(to the extent that Davith's deb files work...

Cool, I'll try it then.


--
Micah Lee

[tim.t...@gmail.com]

OK,

My current work can be tried out here https://github.com/timthelion/qubes-tools-debian . It currently leads you through building and installing Davith's deb packages. However this isn't "done" and it's not fully working. Please watch the discussion here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qubes-devel/Jdqd_Cn1Gwg

Timothy