Ability to attach flash stick to minimal qube

User Support
1

In the docs it says

USB qube, such as the template for sys-usb: qubes-usb-proxy to provide USB devices to other Qubes and qubes-input-proxy-sender to provide keyboard or mouse input to dom0

and

Qubes to which USB devices are attached: libpam-systemd (Until #7689 is fixed, either pair it with qubes-core-agent-passwordless-root or manually activate the user session with loginctl activate <USER_SESSION_ID>.)

https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/templates/minimal-templates.html#debian

  1. I don’t wanna use qubes-core-agent-passwordless-root
  2. the loginctl session-status says c2 - user (1000) and it’s State is active.
  3. I can’t loginctl activate <USER_SESSION_ID>, it says operation not supported
  4. do I must install the qubes-usb-proxy in a template of a qube to which I want a usb flash drive to be attached(not a sys-usb)? Because otherwise it doesn’t work
1 Like
2

If it’s removable media you can just attach the block device.

3

Isn’t that the same thing I’m talking about?
I tried to attach an entire block drive and a single partition with same result.
Or can you please elaborate, what should I do practically(assume fresh debian 13 min template and a qube based on it)? maybe I didn’t catch something?

All I want is to be able to attach flash stick to my qube

4

qubes-usb-proxy is for attaching USB devices, not block devices. This is unnecessary. Attach the partition using the usb logo on the top right of the screen, then start a root terminal in the qube and run # mount /dev/xvdi /run/media/. If this passes with no stderr and you find your files in /run/media (you may want to chown to user), then your block devices are attaching correctly.

5

But if I don’t install qubes-usb-proxy and will try to attach my usb stick, it says I must install that package. Otherwise it doesn’t even let me attach anything.

What exactly the qubes-usb-proxy does to my qube if I install it? Does it expose anything or start to act as sys-usb?

1 Like
6

What does it say, and where is it said?

Read this page about USB devices and this page
about block devices.
You do not need to install qubes-usb-proxy to attach a block
device, even if it is a USB storage device. You do need it
installed if you want to attach a device as a USB device

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.