Clean Reinstall + Install Packages and Previous Configs as a Way of Backup/Restore Process

[enmus]

@deeplow

Let me say that I totally understand your reasoning for this. Actually, I did exactly what you suggested in your first post. When moving to 4.1 I didn’t restore the default templates.

Thanks @deeplow for your post. It helped my sanity check to be confirmed.

@deeplow

Instead, I opted to reinstall all the software I had there.

Absolutely. The difference is that I started to use Qubes 4.1 from the early betas and without enough experience. So I started with the defaults, then installed all (un)necessary packages in the templates, only to then to discover disposables and how to use and customize them, after which I discovered minimals, then apt-cacher, then sys-audio, at the same time experimenting with Windows standalones, templates and its disposables, and now I have few more things to test and utilize, like sys-gui-gpu for example. Now, you can imagine what my Qubes looks like after all these testings. I must say here that whatever i did, I did it with high caution (didn’t connect to internet for a few weeks for example, and researching from the other computer), meticulously as possible (no single valuable data out of vault for example) and for all this time my Qubes was extremely stable and never crashed or freezes for a single time. But, bloated and compromised - most probably (Apper in dom0 or temporarily connecting some templates to the net for example - yes I know). As the last thing in this process is to prepare my data (but not the current state) for backup and restore. That’s how this topic was created.

@deeplow

Instead, I opted to reinstall all the software I had there. To do this I used commands like dnf history (on fedora templates) to see what else I had installed. There should be a similar one for debian.

Then I also looked at the file .bash_history to see the commands I had run on the template to recall any other changes. Since they are templates, I didn’t to a lot there so it was relatively simple.

Thanks for the tips. I want first to prepare dom0 with only the tweaks that I now find and am sure are needed or are useful (and your tips are applicable there too), after that the same for templates, and then to check tweaks for appVMs like bind dirs are for example…

@deeplow

In the future (and this is advanced stuff), you can take a look at saltstack.

That is my intention which would hopefully defy the purpose of this topic, and I’m trying, but very often it gets me feel like somehow there is a lack of documentation using it on Qubes, and especially on Qubes 4.1, like here for example. of course it is mainly due to I’m still don’t comprehend it enough to use it comfortably.

@deeplow

@enmus I’ve attempted to rewrite the title to be more explicit about the issue. But let me know if I totally butchered it and just change it back.

It’s great, but having on mind what we all wrote here, please consider if adding words “… as a way to backup/restore” at the end of how you edited it now would be with added value. Because I find your and mine tactic as a legit way to backup (data) and restore (desired state of the Qubes and its qubes). Having the title like that would hopefully help other users to at least consider to do it this way when thinking about backup and restore.