Persistent usb device prevents sys-net from starting on boot

User Support Hardware Issues
1

Hi there,

My machine has an external usb NIC attached, which I use for network connections in sys-usb. I added this device with the --persistent flag so it automatically attaches to sys-net anytime the system boots.

However, it seems sys-usb is started after sys-net and prevents sys-net to boot up correctly.

Is there some way to force sys-net to wait for sys-usb before starting?

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2

at least for troubleshooting, you could untick start at boot for sys-net in sys-net:Qubes Settings.

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3

What type of trouble shooting do you have in mind? Currently, the system boots up just fine. Its just that sys-net and sys-firewall don’t come up on boot. If I start them after logged into the UI, everything works.

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4

I don’t have a direct solution to your problem, but in case you can’t resolved it, what you can do it is to combine sys-net and sys-usb so that sys-net has access to the USB controller and fulfills
the function of sys-usb.

But it will cost a bit of your security doing that

What Qubes OS version are you using ?

What is the version of your kernel ?

What is the model of your NIC card ?

Edit : How to combine sys-usb with sys-net

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5

Qubes 4.0 with kernel-latest. The NIC is a cheap noname one.

I don’t think the NIC itself is the problem. I haven’t tried yet, but I think this problem would occur with whatever usb device you connect to sys-net when using a usb vm. The problem is that sys-usb is started after sys-net. usb devices can only be attached after sys-usb has started, so sys-net is damned to fail in this case.

How is Qubes determining the start order of other vms? it seems the “NetVM” property implicitely defines such an order.

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6

Hello, during my struggles with this very problem I somehow landed in this thread.

I am forced to use usb-eth adapter due to my MB eth being “weird” (lets not elaborate o this).
So, similar to OP, I have attached my usb-eth adapter (bound to sys-usb VM) to sys-net VM via qvm-usb.

I have also noticed that sys-net, sys-firewal, and personal do not start up automatically.
I solved it be editing systemd services:

systemctl edit qubes-vm@sys-net - added this:

[Unit]
Requires=qubes-vm@sys-usb.service
After=qubes-vm@sys-usb.service

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/sleep 10

systemctl edit qubes-vm@sys-firewall - added this:

[Unit]
Requires=qubes-vm@sys-net.service
After=qubes-vm@sys-net.service

systemctl edit qubes-vm@personal - added this:

[Unit]
Requires=qubes-vm@sys-firewall.service
After=qubes-vm@sys-firewall.service
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