Debian-minimal template for sys-audio

User Support
81

What I’m still struggling with here is that the only way I can install is with sudo apt. Plain old apt will simply fail. Thus I have to install as root. So I’m back to wondering what difference it could make, and if it somehow does, it sounds like a bug in apt to me, to be honest.

82

Telling people how to install software via apt is also beyond this thread.

Edit: I fail to get what are you saying. I give up.

83

plain apt?

Is there some other kind of apt?

I’m not struggling to run apt, I’m struggling to understand YOU. I keep getting hints that there’s something different about this second install, and you keep just laughing at me when I ask what it is. Now you’re hinting I can’t run apt?

Honestly…I wonder if I even have any understanding of what you’re trying to tell me here.

I haven’t even tried to do this yet, because until now I was under the impression you were doing something “special” on the second install that you weren’t telling people.

So you’re literally running apt the same way both times?

84

I was able to get my disposable sys-audio to work with Bluetooth earbuds using the USB Bluetooth 4.0 adapter available at ThinkPenguin:

https://thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-usb-bluetooth-40-micro-adapter-tpe-usbbluv4

This USB adapter does not require any non-free firmware.

The necessary packages for Bluetooth:

  • blueman

  • pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

The install commands for my Debian-minimal sys-audio template:

apt-get install alsa-firmware-loaders alsa-oss alsa-ucm-conf alsa-utils qubes-input-proxy-sender qubes-usb-proxy -y

apt-get install --no-install-recommends blueman pavucontrol pulseaudio pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-qubes qubes-audio-daemon qubes-core-admin-client qubes-gui-daemon-pulseaudio socat -y

Here are the steps to connect a Bluetooth wireless device to sys-audio using GUI:

  1. Make sure that sys-audio and sys-usb are running by using the Qui-domains application in the Notification Area of the Panel, and if not, start them by using Launcher items in the Panel or by using the Qube Manager.

  2. Attach the Bluetooth adapter to sys-audio using the Qui-devices application in the Notification Area of the Panel.

  3. Start Blueman Bluetooth Manager in sys-audio using a Launcher item in the Panel.

  4. On the window that appears with the prompt Shall bluetooth get enabled automatically?, select Yes. If the window does not appear after several seconds, you may need to click the Launcher to start the Blueman Bluetooth Manager again. If after several seconds, the window still does not start, you may need to detach the Bluetooth adapter and reattach it to sys-audio and then start the Blueman Bluetooth Manager again.

  5. Select the Search button in the toolbar of the Blueman Bluetooth Manager window in order to scan for Bluetooth wireless devices.

  6. Select your Bluetooth wireless device in the list of available devices, and then select the yellow four-pointed star button in the toolbar in order to mark the device as trusted.

  7. Select the key button next to the four-pointed star button in the toolbar in order to create pairing with the device. Once the initial pairing has completed, the device will connect for a moment and then disconnect. When connected, there will be three colorful icons on the right side of the device item (orange, green, and blue), and when disconnected, the icons will disappear.

  8. Select the Device button in the menu and select the option to Connect, or you can right-click (secondary-click) the Bluetooth device and select the option to Connect.

  9. Once connected, you can select the Blueman-Applet application in the Notification Area of the Panel, move the cursor to the Recent Connections... option, and then select the available option Auto connect profiles on <DEVICE> so that the Bluetooth wireless device will automatically connect in the future. If this feature does not work to auto connect, you can simply click the Auto connect profiles on <DEVICE> option to manually connect, which is quicker and more convenient than connecting manually as described in step 8. You can close the Blueman Bluetooth Manager window now. The Blueman-Applet application can be used to turn Bluetooth on/off and can be used to connect manually. If you want to manually disconnect without turning Bluetooth off, you can select the Devices... option to open the Blueman Bluetooth Manager window again.

With a disposable sys-audio, these steps must be done for each new session, but this is a relatively quick and easy process.

I may make some more attempts to get the Librem 14 built-in Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Bluetooth to work in the future, but this setup that I have outlined above is preferable to me, since there is no requirement for non-free firmware.

I wish everyone luck with your efforts to configure sys-audio for your needs.

4 Likes
85

I would like to confirm that Bluetooth audio is unaffected by the issue that I documented here and here of this post.

This makes me think that the issue has something to do with the hardware and possibly firmware of the Librem 14 built-in speakers and headphone jack. But the issue only presents itself when using sys-audio, which I do not understand.

The good news is that I only need to start my sys-audio qube once if I only intend to use Bluetooth audio, while allowing me the option to enable the built-in speakers later by restarting sys-audio twice.

86

The issue affecting my sys-audio qube has been fixed by Purism developer Jonathon Hall with the releases of Librem-EC 1.13 and coreboot 4.19-Purism-1/PureBoot 25:

2 Likes
87

Gods, this thread is such an absolute useless mess it’s not even funny - with such “guides” it is better to just throw stuff at random and hope that it sticks lol. It’s not like authors of such “guides” do anything different anyway…

Ok.
As I need to somewhat structure my sys-audio odyssey I will split my post into three parts:

  1. My torturous journey of wading through the threads here in search for the crumbs of useful information. And my problems with the so-called “solutions” given in this particular thread.
  2. The steps I took to set up a disposable vm that can use both debian-minimal and fedora-minimal templates.
  3. The bugs I have encountered in the process or the story of how I ultimately failed.

First, I need to mention that even a cursory look at all the threads here would tell you that you should keep from this “sys-audio” thing as far away as possible for a foreseeable future. And this is exactly what I had intended to keep doing… until I found out that the random freezes I keep experiencing might be somehow related to the audio stack :roll_eyes:
So the obvious solution would be to isolate the audio stack in a vm, right? Right, if only things were that simple…

  1. The threads.
    Absolute mess. Don’t even bother.
    This thread exemplifies it more than any other. We have two wonderful “solutions” here:
  • remove and reinstall the same package with the same deps and expect a different result :man_facepalming: …and
  • the kernel initializes the sound card only on the n-th reboot, so… just reboot n times! here’s even a helpful script! (genius lol)
    This is the level we are talking about here…

The ONLY coherent guide I could find is that of neowutran’s, but he uses fedora-minimal for sys-audio, while I strongly prefer debian for my service vms. But this soon got proven to be irrelevant as the same issues got reproduced on both templates.
Nevertheless I used neowutran’s guide as my baseline for a disposable debian-minimal sys-audio vm. Here are my own notes documenting the process:

  1. Create dvm disposable template based on debian-xx-min-clone-audio by enabling Disposable template option

  2. Add restricted tag to the dvm disposable template

qvm-tags <disposable-Template-Name> add restricted
  1. Create a named disposable qube sys-audio based on dvm disposable template 
qvm-create --template <disposable-Template-Name> --class DispVM --label red sys-audio

  1. In sys-audio qube settings Services tab, add the audiovm service

  2. Change sys-audio virtualization mode to HVM

  3. Change sys-audio memory to 1000 MB and uncheck Include in memory balancing

  4. Change sys-audio Default disposable template to none

  5. Passthrough the PCI device 00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS to sys-audio and Configure strict reset for PCI devices

  6. In dom0 execute the following command (change sys-audio to dom0 to revert back)

qubes-prefs default_audiovm sys-audio
  1. Configure policy in dom0 by creating the file /etc/qubes/policy.d/50-sys-audio.policy with the following content
admin.Events   *                         sys-audio   @adminvm                 allow   target=dom0
admin.Events   +domain-stopped           sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.Events   +domain-shutdown          sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.Events   +domain-start             sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.Events   +connection-established   sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0

admin.vm.CurrentState   *   sys-audio   @adminvm                 allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.CurrentState   *   sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.List           *   sys-audio   @adminvm                 allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.List           *   sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0

admin.vm.property.Get                +audiovm       sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.property.Get                +xid           sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.feature.CheckWithTemplate   +audio         sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.feature.CheckWithTemplate   +audio-model   sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.property.Get                +stubdom_xid   sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0

admin.vm.property.Get      +keyboard_layout   sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0
admin.vm.property.GetAll   *                  sys-audio   @tag:audiovm-sys-audio   allow   target=dom0

Further elaboration:
Point 2, ie adding a restricted tag is irrelevant for this discussion - it is used in my rpc policies.

As explained in neowutran’s guide, adding audiovm service will launch at startup the following command: qvm-start-daemon --all --watch

PCI device 00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS is machine specific

debian-xx-min-clone-audio is an updated debian-minimal tempalte with the following installed packages:

  • Utils

    • alsa-utils
    • pciutils // for lspci command
    • pulseaudio-utils // gets installed by the other package

  • Qubes specific

    • pulseaudio-qubes
    • qubes-audio-daemon // gets installed by the qubes-gui-daemon-pulseaudio
    • qubes-gui-daemon-pulseaudio
    • qubes-core-admin-client

  • Misc

    • pasystray // volume tray icon
    • pavucontrol
    • alsa-oss
    • alsa-firmware-loaders
    • alsa-ucm-conf // gets installed by the other package

  • For mic

    • socat

In the debian-xx-min-clone-audio template also:

  • Create the file /etc/modprobe.d/50-snd.conf with the following content
options snd_hda_intel enable=1 index=0 power_save=0

enable=1 needed to automatically switch to your Built-in Audio Analog Stereo output device when (or more like “if”) your soundcard gets initialized, otherwise it will use Qubes VCHAN sink, which is relevant in a disposable environment
power_save=0 is apparently there to help with a scratchy sound

Regarding policies, neowutran has the most concise list which makes me believe that he somehow understood what he was doing. I only needed to add two last lines because I was getting errors.
The policies provided in this thread are excessive - every vm with a default audiovm value gets assigned an audiovm-sys-audio tag when you execute qubes-prefs default_audiovm sys-audio

For a fedora-minimal template I installed packages as outlined in the neowutran’s guide.

This pretty much covers the setup. In the next post I will cover my experiences of actually trying to run it.

1 Like
88

Ok. So I will structure this post by the issues I have expirienced. But first I think it would be better to start on a good note as a baseline - I actually got debian based sys-audio running and working. Once.
Here are the screenshots of what you should see in your working sys-audio pavucontrol panel with misc here being another vm.

Playback
Recording

Output Devices
Output Devices507×508 31.9 KB

Input Devices
Input Devices507×507 20.6 KB

Configuration
Configuration507×509 18.4 KB

If your soundcard doesn’t get initialized - you wouldn’t see anything related to your Built-in Audio here. You can test your audio from inside the sys-audio by running the following command aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav

So that’s all for good news. The issues are as follows:

Issue 1 - Inability to shutdown sys-audio when you make it a default_audiovm as a vm can’t be shutdown when it is an audiovm of the other running vms. And in the default config at minimum sys-audio becomes an audiovm of sys-audio, ie you can’t shutdown it without first changing its audiovm. Which you can do with the command qvm-prefs sys-audio audiovm dom0. Also you can’t leave audiovm field empty because then pulseaudio server wouldn’t be starting.
So I dunno of what use is that restarting script itt when the author forgot to mention this CRUCIAL detail. :man_shrugging:

Issue 2 - Random hung ups at startup with the error Qube sys-audio has failed to start: Cannot connect to qrexec agent for 60 seconds, see /var/log/xen/console/guest-sys-audio.log for details

/var/log/xen/console/guest-sys-audio.log has the following messages related to audio before it shuts down due to timeout

[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275679] watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 52s! [kworker/1:3:251]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275703] Modules linked in: snd_soc_sst_dsp snd_soc_acpi_intel_match snd_soc_acpi snd_soc_core crct10dif_pclmul crc32_pclmul snd_compress crc32c_intel ac97_bus snd_pcm_dmaengine snd_hda_intel snd_intel_dspcfg snd_intel_sdw_acpi snd_hda_codec snd_hda_core snd_hwdep ghash_clmulni_intel snd_seq drm_vram_helper drm_ttm_helper snd_seq_device snd_pcm ttm serio_raw pcspkr drm_kms_helper i2c_piix4 floppy ehci_pci snd_timer cec snd ehci_hcd soundcore ata_generic pata_acpi xen_scsiback target_core_mod xen_netback xen_privcmd xen_gntdev xen_gntalloc xen_blkback xen_evtchn fuse loop drm bpf_preload overlay xen_blkfront
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275889] CPU: 1 PID: 251 Comm: kworker/1:3 Tainted: G             L    5.15.103-1.qubes.fc32.x86_64 #1
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275913] Hardware name: Xen HVM domU, BIOS 4.14.5 03/21/2023
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275930] Workqueue: events azx_probe_work [snd_hda_intel]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275950] RIP: 0010:snd_hdac_bus_send_cmd+0xac/0xd0 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.275973] Code: 28 a8 ec 66 90 fb 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 31 c0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d c3 cc cc cc cc 4c 89 ef e8 a1 28 a8 ec 66 90 fb 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 <b8> f5 ff ff ff eb dd 4c 89 ef e8 89 28 a8 ec 66 90 fb 66 0f 1f 44
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276018] RSP: 0018:ffff9b01004abc18 EFLAGS: 00000246
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276033] RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: ffff8d9b09c80028 RCX: ffff8d9b09c80038
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276053] RDX: 000000000000001f RSI: 00000000405f0005 RDI: ffff8d9b09c804c0
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276072] RBP: 00000000405f0005 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffff8d9b09c80428
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276092] R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000000000004
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276112] R13: ffff8d9b09c804c0 R14: ffff8d9b09c80028 R15: ffff8d9b09c804c8
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276131] FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8d9b79700000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276152] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276168] CR2: 00007c8f3983bd37 CR3: 00000000013bc003 CR4: 00000000003706e0
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276189] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276208] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276228] Call Trace:
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276236]  <TASK>
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276244]  snd_hdac_bus_exec_verb_unlocked+0x7d/0x170 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276264]  snd_hdac_bus_exec_verb+0x3a/0x60 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276283]  hda_reg_read+0x1c8/0x260 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276301]  __snd_hdac_regmap_read_raw+0x86/0xf0 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276321]  setup_fg_nodes+0xc5/0x130 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276338]  snd_hdac_device_init+0x18c/0x360 [snd_hda_core]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276358]  snd_hda_codec_device_init+0xc8/0x150 [snd_hda_codec]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276381]  snd_hda_codec_new+0x1c/0x50 [snd_hda_codec]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276399]  azx_probe_codecs+0xe3/0x150 [snd_hda_codec]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276419]  azx_probe_continue+0x358/0x3c0 [snd_hda_intel]
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276435]  process_one_work+0x1ee/0x390
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276447]  worker_thread+0x4c/0x320
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276458]  ? process_one_work+0x390/0x390
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276470]  kthread+0x124/0x150
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276481]  ? set_kthread_struct+0x50/0x50
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276493]  ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30
[2023-06-19 18:41:05] [   56.276506]  </TASK>
[2023-06-19 18:41:06] .M
.[K[ .[0;31m*.[0;1;31m*.[0m.[0;31m*  .[0m] Job qubes-mount-dirs.service/start running (53s / no limit)
[2023-06-19 18:41:06] .M
.[K[  .[0;31m*.[0;1;31m*.[0m.[0;31m* .[0m] Job qubes-mount-dirs.service/start running (54s / no limit)
[2023-06-19 18:41:07] .M
.[K[   .[0;31m*.[0;1;31m*.[0m.[0;31m*.[0m] Job qubes-mount-dirs.service/start running (54s / no limit)
[2023-06-19 18:41:07] .M
.[K[    .[0;31m*.[0;1;31m*.[0m] Job qubes-mount-dirs.service/start running (55s / no limit)
[2023-06-19 18:41:08] .M
.[K[     .[0;31m*.[0m] Job qubes-mount-dirs.service/start running (55s / no limit)
[2023-06-19 18:41:08] .M
.[K[    .[0;31m*.[0;1;31m*.[0m] Job qubes-mount-dirs.service/start running (56s / no limit)

And /var/log/xen/console/guest-sys-audio-dm.log has the following:

[2023-06-19 18:40:08] wrote 34 bytes to vchan
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] from-vchan: {"execute":"device_add","id":2020372736,"arguments":{"driver":"xen-pci-passthrough","id":"pci-pt-00_1f.3","hostaddr":"0000:00:1f.3"}}

[2023-06-19 18:40:08] 
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_realize: Assigning real physical device 00:1f.3 to devfn 0x30
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_register_regions: IO region 0 registered (size=0x00004000 base_addr=0xa1330000 type: 0x4)
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_register_regions: IO region 4 registered (size=0x00100000 base_addr=0xa1000000 type: 0x4)
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_config_reg_init: Offset 0x000e mismatch! Emulated=0x0080, host=0x0000, syncing to 0x0000.
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_config_reg_init: Offset 0x0010 mismatch! Emulated=0x0000, host=0xa1330004, syncing to 0xa1330004.
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_config_reg_init: Offset 0x0020 mismatch! Emulated=0x0000, host=0xa1000004, syncing to 0xa1000004.
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_config_reg_init: Offset 0x0052 mismatch! Emulated=0x0000, host=0x0043, syncing to 0x0003.
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_config_reg_init: Offset 0x0062 mismatch! Emulated=0x0000, host=0x0080, syncing to 0x0080.
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_pci_intx: intx=1
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] [00:06.0] xen_pt_realize: Real physical device 00:1f.3 registered successfully
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] from-unix: {"return": {}, "id": 2020372736}

[2023-06-19 18:40:08] 
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] wrote 34 bytes to vchan
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] from-vchan: {"execute":"query-pci","id":2020372738}

[2023-06-19 18:40:08] 
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] from-unix: {"return": [{"bus": 0, "devices": [{"irq_pin": 0, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "slot": 0, "class_info": {"class": 1536, "desc": "Host bridge"}, "id": {"device": 4663, "subsystem-vendor": 6900, "vendor": 32902, "subsystem": 4352}, "function": 0, "regions": []}, {"irq_pin": 0, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "slot": 1, "class_info": {"class": 1537, "desc": "ISA bridge"}, "id": {"device": 28672, "subsystem-vendor": 6900, "vendor": 32902, "subsystem": 4352}, "function": 0, "regions": []}, {"irq_pin": 0, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "slot": 1, "class_info": {"class": 257, "desc": "IDE controller"}, "id": {"device": 28688, "subsystem-vendor": 6900, "vendor": 32902, "subsystem": 4352}, "function": 1, "regions": [{"bar": 4, "size": 16, "address": -1, "type": "io"}]}, {"irq_pin": 1, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "irq": 0, "slot": 1, "class_info": {"class": 1664, "desc": "Bridge"}, "id": {"device": 28947, "subsystem-vendor": 6900, "vendor": 32902, "subsystem": 4352}, "function": 3, "regions": []}, {"irq_pin": 1, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "irq": 0, "slot": 2, "class_info": {"class": 65408}, "id": {"device": 1, "subsystem-vendor": 22611, "vendor": 22611, "subsystem": 1}, "function": 0, "regions": [{"bar": 0, "size": 256, "address": -1, "type": "io"}, {"prefetch": true, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 1, "size": 16777216, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}]}, {"irq_pin": 1, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "irq": 0, "slot": 3, "class_info": {"class": 256, "desc": "SCSI controller"}, "id": {"device": 18, "subsystem-vendor": 0, "vendor": 4096, "subsystem": 4096}, "function": 0, "regions": [{"bar": 0, "size": 256, "address": -1, "type": "io"}, {"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 1, "size": 1024, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}, {"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 2, "size": 8192, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}]}, {"irq_pin": 0, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "", "slot": 4, "class_info": {"class": 768, "desc": "VGA controller"}, "id": {"device": 4369, "subsystem-vendor": 6900, "vendor": 4660, "subsystem": 4352}, "function": 0, "regions": [{"prefetch": true, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 0, "size": 16777216, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}, {"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 2, "size": 4096, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}, {"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 6, "size": 65536, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}]}, {"irq_pin": 4, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "ehci", "irq": 0, "slot": 5, "class_info": {"class": 3075, "desc": "USB controller"}, "id": {"device": 9421, "subsystem-vendor": 6900, "vendor": 32902, "subsystem": 4352}, "function": 0, "regions": [{"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": false, "bar": 0, "size": 4096, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}]}, {"irq_pin": 1, "bus": 0, "qdev_id": "pci-pt-00_1f.3", "irq": 0, "slot": 6, "class_info": {"class": 0}, "id": {"device": 41800, "subsystem-vendor": 0, "vendor": 32902, "subsystem": 0}, "function": 0, "regions": [{"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": true, "bar": 0, "size": 16384, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}, {"prefetch": false, "mem_type_64": true, "bar": 4, "size": 1048576, "address": -1, "type": "memory"}]}]}], "id": 2020372738}

[2023-06-19 18:40:08] 
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] wrote 2048 bytes to vchan
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] wrote 1075 bytes to vchan
[2023-06-19 18:40:08] vchan client disconnected
[2023-06-19 18:40:09] {"timestamp": {"seconds": 1687189209, "microseconds": 524449}, "event": "DEVICE_DELETED", "data": {"path": "/machine/peripheral-anon/device[3]"}}

[2023-06-19 18:40:09] {"timestamp": {"seconds": 1687189209, "microseconds": 524520}, "event": "DEVICE_DELETED", "data": {"path": "/machine/peripheral-anon/device[0]"}}

[2023-06-19 18:40:09] random: crng init done
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] xen_pt_msgctrl_reg_write: setup MSI (register: 81).
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] msi_msix_setup: requested pirq 151 for MSI (vec: 0x0, entry: 0x0)
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] xen_pt_msi_setup: MSI mapped with pirq 151.
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] msi_msix_update: Updating MSI with pirq 151 gvec 0x0 gflags 0x7097 (entry: 0x0)
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] Write-back to unknown field 0x44 (partially) inhibited (0x00)
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] If the device doesn't work, try enabling permissive mode
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] (unsafe) and if it helps report the problem to xen-devel
[2023-06-19 18:41:08] pcifront pci-0: Rescanning PCI Frontend Bus 0000:00

Note these lines:

[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] Write-back to unknown field 0x44 (partially) inhibited (0x00)
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] If the device doesn't work, try enabling permissive mode
[2023-06-19 18:40:13] [00:06.0] (unsafe) and if it helps report the problem to xen-devel

Possible Xen bug?

Tho it is difficult to determine if it is related to this specific sys-audio issue or not as I’ve seen similar hang ups on ordinary vms (with not pci devices attached). Maybe it is just an irrelevant Qubes “feature” (ie bug) that just gets in there because of the sheer number of restarts. And speaking of restarts…

Issue 3 - audio card gets initialized 1 out of random number of restarts. And no, it is not 1 out of 3. More like 1 out of 10. Reproduced on both debian and fedora.
Relevant logs:

  • Not initialized
[    3.779104] hdaudio hdaudioC0D0: no AFG or MFG node found
[    3.779108] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:06.0: no codecs initialized
  • Initialized
[    3.956895] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC892: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:line
[    3.956929] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    3.956950] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0x1b/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    3.956973] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[    3.956990] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
[    3.957005] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Front Mic=0x19
[    3.957022] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Rear Mic=0x18
[    3.957040] snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0:      Line=0x1a

[    4.070581] input: HDA Intel PCH Front Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/sound/card0/input6
[    4.071734] input: HDA Intel PCH Rear Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/sound/card0/input7
[    4.073122] input: HDA Intel PCH Line as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/sound/card0/input8
[    4.074564] input: HDA Intel PCH Line Out as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/sound/card0/input9
[    4.075419] input: HDA Intel PCH Front Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/sound/card0/input10

Issue 4 - Even when the card gets initialized sometimes there are no streams from the client vms. But sometimes there are. Hard to test in detail because of the Issue 3 and Issue 1.

So that’s about it. My guess is that it’s some xen bug related to pci passthrough that produces this erratic behavior. Maybe I will test this sys-audio thing again in Qubes 6.0 or something.

2 Likes
89

Out of the blue, totally new property might prevent you from hearing sound from sys-audio. Just discovered it when starting some VM.

admin.vm.property.Get +stubdom_xid sys-audio @tag:audiovm-sys-audio allow target=dom0

1 Like
90

I think I had included this line in the guide. Do you think I should update something?

1 Like
91

No as I see it. I haven’t had that line and I had no problems with it while using sys-audio for non-microphone use. Tried something in order to use microphone and sys-audio stopped working at all, only to discover that now I need this line out of the blue to get sys-audio back. :roll_eyes:

In addition I got 2 new (weird?) errors not seen before, but I am not sure how specific they are for my configuration

admin.vm.device.mic.Available * sys-audio * allow target=dom0
admin.vm.device.usb.Available * sys-audio sys-usb(net) allow target=dom0

Still not working microphone with integrated web camera… Any help appreciated…

2 Likes