Automated Qubes OS Installation using Kickstart and/or PXE Network Boot

[qstateless]

@alzer89

@alzer89

Hang in there, regardless of what life throws at you.

Thanks! I will.

@alzer89

It’s a very interesting adaptation of Saltstack for Qubes OS. It took me a while to get my head around it, but once I did, I realised that it’s genius.

I will have to give Qubes Salt another go at some point in the future. Learning qrexec is on my list too. List is always too long and growing it seems.

@alzer89

You should be able to build PXE boot into your Coreboot ROM.

Basically:

Thanks for the further breakdown of the PXE boot process. That’s quite interesting the way you describe.

@alzer89

@qstateless

I am really hoping that I can somehow use your Qubes PXE system to be usable with a current RAM-based version of Qubes

Well, I haven’t really designed this for that purpose…

…yet…

Proposal / Questions:

I’m looking for the easiest straight-forward way to make a current RAM-based Qubes OS that is suitable for PXE network booting, and wondering what your thoughts were?

Here is what I was thinking…

• There is no recent Qubes Live version available and am guessing the Qubes Builder won’t successfully build this anymore (but have not verified this). An old Kickstart file for Qubes Live is there somewhere in the source.

• But we now have @xuy’s Qubes in tmpfs working as a RAM-based Qubes OS.

• It appears that PXE maybe needs an .ISO (iso9660) formatted image to load?

• So I wonder if there is way to take an existing Qubes installation from a drive and write it into a .ISO (iso9660) formatted file, which could be used for PXE network booting, instead of using the standard Qubes Installer ISO?

• If we could convert an existing Qubes installation from drive to .ISO that’s PXE bootable, then it seems this Qubes installed image could have been customized however one wants and include xuy’s Qubes in tmpfs modifications so it can boot Dom0 into RAM.

What do you think of the viability for this approach for RAM-based Qubes PXE network booting?

If possible, would all that be needed is to convert an existing Qubes installation to a .ISO (iso9660) formatted file and swap it for the Qubes Installer ISO you’re using, or would the PXE configuration files need to be modified in some way as well? Anything else?

Very much appreciate all of your positive and detailed sharing of value throughout the forum, alzer89! Noticed multiple times in multiple places.

Others with knowledge on my proposal, feel free to jump in too.

Really looking for any viable way to network boot a RAM-based Qubes, as this would be a truly killer feature for certain setups & workflows (not Qubes Air stuff at this point for me, but that’s a good idea too).

Thanks!