Missing default-mgmt-dvm. Is my Qubes Update tool broken?

anon1 · January 4, 2024, 1:54pm

After performing the in-place upgrade from R4.1 to R4.2, I noticed that when upgrading templates with the Qubes Update tool the default-mgmt-dvm qube no longer comes up. With R4.1 the default-mgmt-dvm would first come up, then the qube to be updated would come up. The updates would usually take a few minutes, at least. Now each qube updates quite fast, often under a minute. Is this normal behavior or is my qubes updater broken?

Does the above have anything to do with the fact that default-mgmt-dvm is now hidden by default within the Qube Manager?

I tried to find information on this in the R4.2 release notes and forum, but couldn’t find a direct mention.

TheGardner · January 4, 2024, 2:29pm

it’s there - but hidden! You have to make it visible by checking “Show Internal” under VIEW in Qubes Manager

anon1 · January 4, 2024, 2:37pm

Please read the full post. I acknowledge this fact, but the main concern is that regardless of whether I check “Show internal” the default-mgmt-dvm still does not come up during updates.

DVM · January 4, 2024, 2:42pm

In Qubes 4.2, the updater no longer uses the mgmt template.

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Implement own non-interactive template update tool

opened 03:04PM - 14 Apr 22 UTC

marmarek

T: enhancement P: major release notes ux C: updates

Implement our own non-interactive update mechanism (not requiring DispVM in the …middle) - including a method to plug security fixes for VM's own update mechanism, like we did via Salt in the past (it happened already for both Fedora and Debian) The interface should provide basic feedback on a) progress, b) what updates were installed (output from package manager is probably enough). And a reliable information if the update process succeeded. In subsequent version we may want more structured progress reporting (to show a progress bar somewhere, instead of a terminal output). This is to replace updates via salt in majority of cases. Not requiring DispVM and more targeted support for specific package managers should make updates much quicker and less resource intensive. For initial version it needs to support package managers as in https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-core-agent-linux/blob/master/package-managers/upgrades-installed-check _Originally posted by @marmarek in https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/6624#issuecomment-845369779_

SteveC · January 4, 2024, 7:33pm

That’s actually a huge incentive to upgrade. It took quite some time to spool that qube up and shut it down, multiplied by many, many templates…

anon1 · January 5, 2024, 12:46am

Thanks for the info!