Functionalities of Private Storage and System Storage

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Hi there, I’m new to Qubes OS. I’m creating a Qubes VM when I saw “Private Storage max. size”. I already searched in the docs and in the search engine, but I haven’t found a concrete answer for my questions.

  • Does private storage uses RAM as storage?
  • Is private storage included in the system storage? (like a virtual disk but separates the “private” and “system” storage)
  • Is private storage in the dom0’s storage?

Any links are fine, I’ll read it by myself. If you don’t want to type an explanation. Thanks in advance.

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Hi, welcome to the community!

AppVMs get their root filesystem from another qube (template qube), Fedora or Debian, by default. This is how Qubes OS isolation works. Private storage is what’s belonging to the VM itself, used for example for /home directory.

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I see. Here private storage might be inducing you into thinking it’s somehow “safer” than regular storage. This might actually be a usable security issue. @fslover’s answer is great, btw.

(This reminds me of “private keys” on assymetric cryptography that lead some users to think those should be sent to others when one wants to do a private conversation – something one should never do!)

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