Attaching storage to dom0 directly would be dangerous. So what you do is attach it to a running qube and then on the backup manager you select that qube and then a dialogue box will open whenere you choose the device.
Required reading:
If you want to further improve your setup you then attach that usb to the qube automatically and then make use of the backup profiles and the qvm-backup terminal utility.
so just use the command line qvm-backup utility from the appvm where the SSD is attached versus trying to access the ssd from dom0 (even though its attached to an app vm)?
hi deeplow - i can use the gui to perform the backup. Is it possible to access the USB SSD attached to the appvm from dom0 on the command line? How do i reference the backup location needed in qvm-backup from dom0?
Thanks deeplow - yes i have read the man pages on qvm-backup. And I do apologize for being a noob
the backup_location argument is my mystery. how do I reference the SSD attached to another qube in a manner that satisfies the backup_location argument?
qvm-usb provides the following
sys-usb:3-6 Samsung_PSSD_T7
is there anyway for me to access that mounted drive in an appVM from dom0.
It either cant be done or I’m missing something simple
No need to apologize. Reading the documentation is generally key, sometimes it helps if you mention which pages you’ve read.
Maybe it’s easier if you do it via the GUI first. Then that configuration is saved to a profile so running from the terminal with qvm-backup should be easier.
qvm-backup -v -d backup --passphrase-file backup.txt /media/user/T7/Qubes work
will backup work appvm to the USB SSD attached to qube backup
I was able to use the --save-profile backup argument successfully.
But when i try to run qvm-backup --profile backup or qvm-backup --profile backup.conf I get a permission denied error for call to b’admin.backup.Info’+b’/backup.conf (b’dom0’ > b’dom0’) with payload of 0 bytes.
I checked the permissions of the saved backup profile to that of the backup.conf file created by the qubes back up manager gui and the permissions are identical.
Here is the error from journalctl using The command is qvm-backup --profile backup.conf
Jul 21 06:42:58 dom0 qubesd[2416]: permission denied for call b’admin.backup.Info’+b’backup.conf’ (b’dom0’ → b’dom0’) with payload of 0 bytes
here is the error using the default profile created by the backup manager GUI
I run qvm-backup back.conf qvm-backup launches with this default configuration
------------------+--------------+--------------+
VM | type | size |
------------------+--------------+--------------+
dom0 | User home | 131.4 MiB |
whonix-gw-15 | Template VM | 2.1 GiB |
debian-10 | Template VM | 8.4 GiB |
whonix-ws-15 | Template VM | 3.2 GiB |
fedora-32 | Template VM | 4.8 GiB |
sys-net | VM | 98.1 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
sys-firewall | VM | 98.1 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
proton-vpn | VM | 106.3 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
sys-whonix | VM | 113.7 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
whonix-ws-15-dvm | VM | 0 |
anon-whonix | VM | 0 |
default-mgmt-dvm | VM | 0 |
finance | VM | 536.8 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
fedora-32-dvm | VM | 0 |
sys-usb | VM | 98.3 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
debian-back | Template VM | 8.6 GiB |
anom | VM | 333.4 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
work | VM | 10.0 GiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
------------------+--------------+--------------+
Total size: | 38.6 GiB |
------------------+--------------+--------------+
VMs not selected for backup:
- backup
Do you want to proceed? [y/N]
Hit Yes and get this error : Backup error: ERROR: the backup directory for back.conf does not exists
where is qvm-backup getting these settings? the default config (from the gui) in /etc/qubes/backup matches my saved profile and the command line below.
If I run this command qvm-backup -d backup /home/user/Qubes work
Jul 29 07:58:16 dom0 qubesd[2421]: in "/etc/qubes/backup/test.conf", line 2, column 17
Jul 29 07:58:16 dom0 qubesd[2421]: yaml.scanner.ScannerError: mapping values are not allowed here
I edited the default qubes profile file to pare it down to something very simple to get something to work. Then I was trying to figure out how to insert the --yes command line argument into the profile which led me to determine that a space was causing the backup to fail. and also led me to just submit -y on the command line with --profile FILE.
also the permissions on the default qubes backup profile need to be rw-rw- as you stated before