New guy here and a couple of questions

User Support
1

Hello, I’m an old time Linux user but brand new to qubes and feel like I started all over again. I just have a couple questions.

  1. Is there a way to get the latest Firefox? I upgraded to Fedora 32 qube but still don’t get past 77

  2. I use Mullvad for VPN. If I wanted to use it which cube would I put it on to cover the whole system? Or can I even do that?

  3. Also, I did install Fedora 32 and switched most of my doms to using it, well the ones that were on 30. There were a few I couldn’t make the switch because I couldn’t stop them… sys-net, sys-firewall, sys-USB. How do I go about getting them on 32… once there do all those services need to be reconfigured?

Thanks ahead of time, and sorry for the barrage of questions that may come in the future.

2

You’re not starting over again. Apart from some Qubes specific issues
(inter-qube networking, device attachment) your Linux knowledge will
stand you in good stead.
Many of the problems that people have are not Qubes problems - they are
distro specific and can be solved using standard techniques for those
distros.

On your specifics:

  1. This is Fedora specific - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox#Package_updates
    On that link you’ll see that 82 is available for Fedora32.
    In your Fedora template run dnf update - you should get at least to
    80, depending on which mirror you hit.

  2. Read https://qubes-os.org/doc/vpn
    You can configure sys-net to ensure that all traffic goes though the
    VPN, or you can configure a specific netvm to serve as a VPN proxy, and
    connect qubes to that.

  3. Just shut down those qubes, and make the template change.
    If you are using a sys-net for keyboard access, this isn’t so straight
    forward, but a simple bash script will do the trick: it’s been covered
    many time on the qubes-users mailing list, and a search there would
    help you.
    Something like this in dom0:

#!/usr/bin/bash
qvm-shutdown sys-usb
sleep 3
qvm-prefs sys-usb template <new template>
sleep 1
qvm-start sys-usb

A sensible approach would be to *revert the change in the script so
you have a chance to test and fix things if anything is broken, before
making the final change.
If you need help with this, look at posts on the qubes-users mailing list.

2 Likes
4

Mullvad are Qubes supporters :wink: They have made a guide:

To me it is not so very well written but it works. Do step-by-step and take care that you switch and command into the right VM.

Personally, I had several issue when restarting … sometimes it worked, sometimes not.
Let me know how it works on your side (after one or two weeks).

5

The Mullvad guide was kind of bad the last time I looked… its overly
complicated and has you hard-coding IP addresses which leads to things
breaking later on.

Qubes-vpn-support is currently the easiest and most robust method:

When setting it up for Mullvad, you just have to remember that Mullvad
account passwords are always just “m”.

1 Like
6

Looks very promising !
I will do a test and send you a feedback.
Thanks for the link

7

Hi @tapple233066 and welcome!

In general it’s better to break questions into topics of their own such that the answers can be more helpful to others since they’re easier to find :slight_smile:

There is a VPN guide on the community documentation, but it’s a bit confusing. I woul suggest you take at some of the links in the following discussion:

For making this VPN system-wide you just add it individually as the netVM for each of your Qubes. If anonymity is your concern you should be aware that having all connections go though the VPN will make them correlated. Whonix would be a better approach for that situation.

8

Here my summary:
I was not able to setup the vpn by following this guide

Don’t get me wrong, this guide looks like a solid solution but for me it wasn’t enough info (setup explanation) to get the vpn working.

But when you are using Mullvad I highly recommend this guide since it is very well written step-by-step with some nice hints and background info.

I guess this works also for other vpn providers with very small modifications.

Mullvad says bye for now and tunnels back home :hole:

9

@tapple233066 how is it going with your VPN setup?
Did you managed it? …which setup did you follow?