Qube don’t show any GUI

User Support
1

Hello there,

I managed to break a Template-based VM: it won’t show any window, including a console. According to the logs, the machine is up, I’ve got “MachineName login : Hostname=MachineName, addr=? terminal=/dev/tty7 res=success.”. After each attempt to open something, I got “…msg='op=PAM:authentication grantors/pam_rootok acct=“user” exe=”… qrexec-agent" res=success. If in Qube Manager I do right-click on the VM and choose “Run command in qube”, I am able to stop the machine with “sudo halt”. As lastly I changed the /rw/config/rc.local, I’ve issued from there “sudo mv /rw/config/rc.local”, without improvement (still no GUI showing). Another thing to mention is the missing icon pictures from the desktop icons, belonging to that VM.

I would like to know more generally how should one proceed when debugging such situations -

  1. How to start a qube in single-user / recovery mode?

  2. How to start a qube without starting anything that is saved in the template-based VM (useful also for security check/audit I guess)?

Best,

Ivan

2

Hi @ivan-jli

I am not sure I understand exactly what you are trying to do. (Starting an AppVM or starting a TemplateVM? To access the data, or to fix it?)

However, if you suspect that your TemplateVM may be broken and you would like to access the data saved in you AppVM, you can change that AppVM’s template in the Qube Manager! (Or from the Q Menu > “AppVM name” > Settings.)

That should allow you to start it and access its persistent directories /rw, /home etc. It is not exactly a recovery mode, but it may still allow to recover your data.

Once you’ve a backup of your data, or you think you’ve fixed the TemplateVM, you can change the AppVM settings again to confirm :slightly_smiling_face:

Does that make sense? Does it start answering your question?

3

Hi @gonzalo-bulnes , thank you for the answer. Unfortunately it doesn’t help me, because the problem is in the AppVM, the template starts without a problem - the console is there.

4

  1. sudo xl console, or better qvm-console-dispvm, will give you
    access to a real console.

  2. If I understand, you cant do this.
    You can access the qube data - either by directly mounting in dom0, or
    by connecting the qube’s drive to another qube.
    Identify the device from ls /dev/qubes -l
    losetup -P DEVICE_YOU_FOUND -f
    Use qvm-block to attach to another qube.

Option 1 is obviously better, since it gives you access to the live
system.

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