A pre-configured Qubes with the following settings?

General Discussion
1

Yesterday, during the conference, a lady (sorry, I forgot names) mentioned more options for configuring Qubes will be offered in the installation phase.

Would it be possible to expand this concept and say, offer a Qubes preconfigured as follows:
(1) Email Qube (no browsing or opening documents; browser pre-configured to send to #2); could include file sharing services such as pCloud and Tresorit; fedora-minimal or debian-minimal
(2) Disposable web-browing qube, for video conference, etc.
(3) Document vault work qube (no browsing; browser pre-configured to send to #2)

The following could be added:
(4) SplitPGP VM pre-connected to Email Qube
(5) Untrusted Qube for web browsing; fedora-minimal or debian-minimal
(6) Signal Desktop Qube (Debian-minimal based)

This is increasingly relevant in light of the Pegasus Morocco hack. The government just re-directed the web traffic from yahoo.fr to their own malicious website. See network injection attacks against Maati Monjib Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group’s Pegasus | Amnesty International

And it seems to me that one of the rare solutions out there for such an attacks is Qubes Disposable VMs.

1 Like
2

Everyone needs a different configuration and such list of preconfigured qubes would be infinite. Not a good thing during an installation.

Instead, one can use Salt to automatically create new configured qubes. Ideally, you would just need to find the correct Salt formula which was created beforehand. See discussion here: Packaging Salt states / formulas for use in Qubes OS and the Github issue.

3

Thanks for your reply. I do not have an IT background. Would I be able to use Salt?

The context of my suggestion is for a small team of non-IT experts but who do need to use Qubes (ex: human rights NGO in Asia with limited resources) to be able to secure their computers.

4

I hope we can have preconfigured Salt formulas, which everyone can just run. This is work in progress currently.

A relevant discussion: Qubes for at-risk populations.

I believe one can also learn Salt even without IT background, but it requires some efforts.

5

Yes! This topic was lightly touched. I think it has good potential. And there are even discussions of doing something like this:

I believe it was Marta.

I have some other thoughts on this. Will try to reply later :slight_smile:

6

@oijawyuh - if you have a current need for this PM me, and I will help.

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7

Thank you for your offer to help. I do not have a current need. I do like to learn in the future, though, how to manage multiple laptops via Salt. I will message you then if it’s OK with you.

FYI, I have installed Qubes for two of my colleagues. One of the two colleagues works in another country. I installed Qubes on a laptop and gave it to her when we met in person. The most difficult part in helping at a distance my colleague manage qubes is installing and upgrading to a newly released Fedora template. Another challenge is when, for example, the update fails repeatedly over a period of 2 to 3 weeks. And I needed to use a video call, looking at her screen, to figure out that the problem was Template VM System Storage was maxed out, and I needed to increase it for the updates to take place. [I’m sharing this info as FYI - No action is requested.]

Thanks again!

1 Like
8

Fine - don’t hesitate to ask when need comes.