Can't Access SSD as Secondary Storage

Hi,
I have been using Qubes OS for several weeks, but I am still experiencing some difficulties to use an extra SSD drive, I installed and configured with the help of the tutorial available on Qubes OS’ website.
I would have extra stuffs, I would like to be helped into, but it would be too long to describe here.
If someone could help me outside here, I would be grateful: through email, phone or more. I can be reached as well in english as in german, french…
Thanks in advance,
Jeremy.

Interesting. Not sure if anyone here does consulting work to help setup the system.

What you can do is break down your problems and post a topic for each one, here. That’s what some folks have been doing.

1- I need help to install a Brother printer and scanner plugged on Ethernet on another network.
2- I need to use the space on my second SSD drive (I followed instructions to set up on here Secondary Storage | Qubes OS), I can see it in Qubes Disk Space Monitorm, but I can’t access it.

Ok. You seem to want to get further help here. I’ve renamed this topic to your second issue and followed up your other issue here: Help Setting Up Ethernet-connected Brother Printer & Scanner. Let’s see if someone can help.

are you using 4.0 / 4.1 ?

Try connecting the printer and scanner network with sys-net, you should be able connect from there.

What is your purpose of using this? are you wanted to use this as external drive or as secondary storage to store your qube vm?

Hi,

and thanks for your answer.
For the printer issue : I am using a Brother MFC-L8690CDW, which is plugged on Ethernet to my router, but Qubes is on another Internet Provider router… I tried to install the packages for Brother with a file that does install scanner and printer drivers, but it cannot connect to the IP address, and I noticed some failures during the installation.


I installed a fresh SSD in the computer (and followed as described the tutorial to add a second storage) and would like to use it as storage of Qubes VMs (if you could tell me how to clone the ones I created to this fresh SSD, I would be grateful) and, if possible, as a normal storage to put some extra datas.

I am using 4.1
Btw, I have no idea how to connect the printer and scanner with sys-net… :frowning:

Come on, people. help me out. Let’s discuss printer stuff on the other thread: Help Setting Up Ethernet-connected Brother Printer & Scanner

And keep this one for SSD stuff… This way topics can be useful for other people in the same situations :slight_smile:

Have you followed this guide correctly? if you fail, i believe you made a typo or skip some of the details.

Example Setup

Assuming the secondary hard disk is at /dev/sdb (it will be completely erased), you can set it up for encryption by doing in a dom0 terminal (use the same passphrase as the main Qubes disk to avoid a second password prompt at boot):

sudo cryptsetup luksFormat --hash=sha512 --key-size=512 --cipher=aes-xts-plain64 --verify-passphrase /dev/sdb
sudo blkid /dev/sdb

Note the device’s UUID (in this example “b209…”), we will use it as its luks name for auto-mounting at boot, by doing:

sudo nano /etc/crypttab

And adding this line (change both “b209…” for your device’s UUID from blkid) to crypttab:

luks-b20975aa-8318-433d-8508-6c23982c6cde UUID=b20975aa-8318-433d-8508-6c23982c6cde none

Reboot the computer so the new luks device appears at /dev/mapper/luks-b209… and we can then create its pool, by doing this on a dom0 terminal (substitute the b209… UUIDs with yours):

First create the physical volume

sudo pvcreate /dev/mapper/luks-b20975aa-8318-433d-8508-6c23982c6cde

Then create the LVM volume group, we will use for example “qubes” as the :

sudo vgcreate qubes /dev/mapper/luks-b20975aa-8318-433d-8508-6c23982c6cde

And then use “poolhd0” as the (LVM thin pool name):

sudo lvcreate -T -n poolhd0 -l +100%FREE qubes

Finally we will tell Qubes to add a new pool on the just created thin pool

qvm-pool --add poolhd0_qubes lvm_thin -o volume_group=qubes,thin_pool=poolhd0,revisions_to_keep=2

By default VMs will be created on the main Qubes disk (i.e. a small SSD), to create them on this secondary HDD do the following on a dom0 terminal:

qvm-create -P poolhd0_qubes --label red unstrusted-hdd