Dom0 not checking for updates

Check for dom0 updates is checked.
Check for qube updates by default is checked.

dom0 updates: Testing updates
Templates: ITL templates updates (testing)
Additional templates: Community template updates

Discovered on multiple occasions that Dom0 has updates when using Qube Manager and right mouse click > updates.

The templates do give me update Notification in xfce Taskbar.

I once clicked on Enable checking for updates for all qubes thinking this might resolve the issue but did not.
Side note, the setting if a qube should check for updates is missing, (shouldnā€™t there be one?) in the GUI, neither in Qube Manager nor can it be found under the qube settings.

I do not understand the question, but if you want to check for updates in separate Qube you should:

  1. Start a template (with black icon)
  2. Enable networking for a template
  3. Open Terminal
  4. Run in terminal:
    For Debian:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

For Fedora:

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf upgrade
  1. Run Software Center and update all programs you have
  2. Close terminal and Software Center
  3. Disable networking
  4. Shut down the template

Never do this, unless you know what you are doing. Command line updating in templates via dnf or apt should work without this step.

These two commands are equivalent in Fedora I believe. Running only one of them should be fine.

2 Likes

If you go in Qubes Manager > System > Global Settings, you will find my first to lines which are checked.

With these enabled Qubes will let you know if there are updates for any of your templates and Dom0 via a pop up and a notification in system tray.
Now if you click on this System tray info icon you will get the window that shows you which templates do have updates and you can start the update process.

Sometimes i had Dom0 in there too but not lately. I switched around from sys-whonix for Dom0 UpdateVM to sys-firewall thinking sys-whonix might be the problem but there was no change.

Just now after booting i was presented with a bunch of updates for my fedora-33 templates but non for Dom0.
I then manually checked for updates via Qube Manager, right mouse on Dom0 and select Update and voila there was a new Kernel.

Yes, i do know how to use dnf and apt and update templates but if you search around you will find that we are highly discourage of doing that for updates for security reason in the inner workings of Qubes.

I use flathub. QubesOS updates only system, but not programs. How do you install a software in a Qube?

I am not a hacker or smth. I need the latest LibreOffice, OCR and other packages. It just has no tools to manage software without activating networking. When QubesOS will have tools to install and update software without putting a qube into risk, then I will never do this again.

Oh, I see.

First of all, updates for dom0 are very rare. There are three things that get updates: kernel, qubes components and xen. But Fedora/Debian have thousands of things, so they update very often.

Second, just do not check manually and you will find out that it works fine. Give it a chance! :joy: I have several QubesOS installed and sometimes it takes 1-2 days for update to show up on another computer.

Third, the best way to repair system updates in QubesOS is to install a new template and select that template in the settings of your qube.

Once I lost all user settings in Firefox (I was lucky, not a personal qube), so this is not a completely failsafe process. I guess the problem was that the new version of Firefox in the new qube had to do something with database while updating. But I did no try to troubleshoot the issue.

mate, look at the tittle, post is about Dom0 and even though updates are rarely for dom0, i did mention that updates are shown just fine for my main templates that are in use.
Dom0 though seems to not be doing the same update checks hence i find updates when i check manually via qubes manager.

Your title:

Dom0 not checking for updates

My reply:

Bye

Please let me explain this for you once again in more detail.

  1. I switch on my new testing Qubes Machine with 16cores and very very fast NVME setup.
  2. the updates notification more or less shows up immediately once on the desktop
  3. sometimes i do the updates immediately but most of the time i do them before i shut down the Qubes PC this often is hours later.
  4. in neither scenario of immediate updating or hours later updating was there a Dom0 update notification
  5. hence my post about having to do the check & update of Dom0 manually

I do hope you understand now that this post had nothing to do with templates.

1 Like

Why on earth would you be trying to install libreoffice ā€˜et alā€™ in dom0? dom0 should not have these types of software installed. They should be run in your fedora/debian/$yourchoice VMā€™s as AppVMā€™s running from a $template (eg. installed as standard, debian and fedora, but with others available from community or a bit of work). Iā€™m not seeing what it is you are looking to achieve here? Dom0 should only be receiving updates on kernels, security updates etc. The whole user experience and installed applications should be within AppVMā€™s based on TemplateVMā€™s or AppVMā€™s with ā€œbind-dirsā€. Qubes DOES have the ability to install all the packages you mentioned in templateVMā€™s from command line using ā€˜sudo dnf installā€™ or ā€˜sudo apt installā€™ in the TemplateVMā€™s using Qubes built in proxy (even though it shows those VMā€™s to have no networking, these commands still work, via the proxy). In other words, Qubes already has the tools to install and update all the software you mentioned IN THE VMā€™S. NOT in dom0, because they simpley shouldnā€™t be there.

If Iā€™m misunderstanding and you are not trying to have these pieces of software in dom0, then you have them installled in VMā€™s and Qubes-OS does update these with the template VMā€™s via the qubes update tool, the update button on Qubes-manager and by command-line - although AFAIK this is the least preferred method. If you are looking for new software to install into a template, you can, either with the use of a GUI tool like the gnome-software app to look at software available in a network enabled appVM, find the package name and install it into the template of your choice, or with dnf search in a net enabled vmā€¦

There might still be a problem with qubes updater showing new updates.

I like to keep my desktop running for days some times.
During these periods in the past i have seen the tray icon notifying me about updates.
Today i decided to shut down but before doing that i run a check for updates on my new fedora-36 templates and updates were found.

My guess is that i just checked before the timer was going to check for updates but i donā€™t know that for sure.

By default, most qubes that are connected to the internet will periodically check for updates for their parent templates. If updates are available, you will receive a notification as described above. However, if you have any templates that do not have any online child qubes, you will not receive update notifications for them. Therefore, you should regularly update such templates manually instead.

How and where can i see and modify this periodic timer?