This may be a mind-numbing dumb question to a seasoned Qubes user, but what should I do when the disk usage for a Qube exceeds its disk storage? For example, on my whonix-workstation qube (template) the private storage is 2GB and and system storage is 20GB. So far it has used 4.6 in disk space.
What’s more, I recently had to delete my Debian app qube in order to have enough disk space to run the whonix app qube.
The system in the qube will not allow to use more than the defined 2 and 20 GB.
If you had to delete a qube, it means your computer storage was full, so either reduce the data you store or buy a bigger storage.
What do you mean by buy bigger storage? You mean I need to buy a new computer?
Depending on your computer, you may be able to replace the old or just add a new SSD disk (recommended) or HDD disk (not recommended, slow).
Can you check in your system tray Qubes Disk Space Monitor widget? Which total disk usage does it show?
You can increase the amounts available in the Settings GUI.
You can increase the amount available to private storage on the fly in a
running qube. For system storage you will need to increase the amount
available in the template, and reboot the qube.
I find this surprising. What size disk do you have?
If you were to buy a larger disk you would have to back up your existing
system, install Qubes on the larger disk, and restore the qubes you want
on to the new system. For a beginner this can be daunting.
Sorry, I was not clear enough in my reply. As you stated, it’s possible to increase the storage available in a qube. What I meant is that the operating system in the qube is not allowed to use more disk than what is defined in the settings.
The thumb drive I operate Qubes on is 64GB. Is there a way I can clear space in a template or app wine without either increasing the private/system storage or deleting an app wine and creating a new one?
64 GB is going to be tight, but not impossible.
You may not know it but Qubes maintains backups of private disk images -
look in /dev/qubes_dom0. You would benefit from changing the default
from 2 - changing to 0 could save a lot of space but would remove the
ability to rollback to a previous disk image. That’s something you will
have to balance.
You can set the number of backups using qvm-volume - qvm-volume info work:private will show you information, and qvm-volume config allows
you to change the properties.
So what you’re saying is that ultimately a 64GB drive is a close shave running Qubes with regard to disk space? In that case, is there a guide for backing up and reinstalling Qubes on a new drive so I can save all of my Qubes and files?
And also, you’re saying that eliminating the saved disk images would save space, but would it affect my ability to backup my Qubes on a new drive?
I just want to make sure I have it 100% straight before I make any changes to the system.
Yes, the official documentation is clear on that subject:
Not at all. It’s about reverting a qube to it’s previous snapshot, it’s independent from the backup process:
If you can change your drive, it will be the easiest solution.
Changes done to dom0 are not saved, except the user interface configuration (only /home/ is in dom0 backup)
This is very useful and important to know.
Maybe I knew it once, but I seem to have forgotten.
It would be interesting to know some strategies for keeping a copy of any customisations…