Noticed two domains I've not created: sys-net-dm and default-mgmt-dvm

[f104989]

I’ve noticed there are two domains I’ve not seen before on my machine. This seems a bit suspect, but I hope someone can provide an explanation.

1. While running xentop, I noticed a new domain called sys-net-dm. This domain does not show up in qvm-ls.
2. A new domain showed up in qvm-ls, called default-mgmt-dvm. It was not there until recently.

The two domain are probably unrelated to each other, except for the fact they both appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I’ve not seen them before and I definitely don’t remember creating them.

Does anybody know what they are? Are they created automatically by qubesOS? It’s very strange that I can’t find any reference online about sys-net-dm. I’m using Qubes R4.2.

[parulin]

@f104989

default-mgmt-dvm

What is default-mgmt-dvm?

In Qubes OS Global config, under default disposable template there is a drop down option that appears entitled default-mgmt-dvm. Nowhere else in my qubes/whonix box do I see a cube named default-mgmt-dvm … not in the qubes App/Templates menu’s or in Qube Manager. What exactly is the default-mgmt-dvm and why does it only show up in the Global config? When do and don’t I use the default-mgmt-dvm as a default disposable template? Could you tell me much more about this?

[solene]

A qube name with the suffix -dm seems to indicate an internal Xen convention when hardware is attached to a qube. Maybe it stands for device management. I have it this for sys-usb and sys-net

[DVM]

@f104989

While running xentop, I noticed a new domain called sys-net-dm. This domain does not show up in qvm-ls.

Each HVM qube runs with a stub domain attached. The stub domain is used for PCI device management, as well as for qrexec and audio support for non-Qubes integrated systems. There is a part about it in the Xen documentation:
https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Linux_stub_domains
There is also some information in the Qubes documentation:

Standalones and HVMs

You can verify this by comparing the ID you get with xl list sys-net-dm and qvm-prefs sys-net stubdom_xid.

[f104989]

That’s fantastic, thanks for clearing that up! I just realized sys-net-dm appeared after I issued speaker-test in sys-net (I was in the middle of some troubleshooting and it was the first domain I could think of to do this in).