I went back using Qubes from laptop to desktop. Moreover, it’s becoming quite difficult and time consuming to maintain 2 systems, let along accessing files in many different VMs
I know remote controlling the Qubes OS isn’t recommended for entire purpose of the security, but if one had to go that route, what would be best way doing it?
I travel often and need access to my in house system. I tried to manage 2 Qubes (laptop and desktop), then went high end laptop only, and now going back to full desktop due to better performance.
Would hardware options, such as PiKVM, TinyPilot etc. would be best for this task?
I wouldn’t purchase one of those suspect chinese devices as they are notorious for security problems.
There is a OpenBMC iKVM called the IPDex for sale by SmartAVI.
There isn’t a secure way of doing this but your best bet would be something like that with the usual precautions for any internet connected device.
The capability for doing this has been in Qubes for some years
You can also use a sys-gui - tunnel ssh through from sys-net, and run
vnc access. With suitable modification of the policies you can control
the full system.
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.
How to decrypt disk at startup this way?
If those ready to use options are not that safe, what about running some open source software on small nuc computer, which would have only purpose to KVM the system with QubesOS.
If you mean, “How to decrypt the disk before any qubes are running”, you
cant. But you could run a subset of qubes on an unencrypted disk and
then decrypt once the system is up and running to use the rest. This
carries risk of course.
If that does not fit your case you would have to use some remote access KVM
or (horror) AMT - you could use Tang if your network is secure, but
that is moving in to a different sphere.
What means will you use to boot the machine in the first place?
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.