Qubes LiveCD

huaopeng · May 27, 2022, 12:36pm

Can Qubes be run as a LiveCD .iso from RAM? Like as a RAM disk?

tzwcfq · May 27, 2022, 3:02pm

fsflover · May 27, 2022, 8:47pm

If you want to try Qubes OS, you can install it on a USB stick, without touching your hard drive.

unman · June 9, 2022, 3:35pm

yes, it can
I used to provide a live image, which ran completely in RAM.
Stupidity made me take it down.
I will see if I can post a new image.

Tibotod · March 9, 2025, 12:13pm

I’m also interested in this version.
Never published?

One use case I’d like to try and play with: hiding the use of such a disto.

Keep safe the Qubes iso in an encrypted archive.
Boot on a trusted computer (or with another popular live distro)
Extract the archive and prepare a bootable usb key with it
Reboot on that key.
Once ready, with the full os in RAM, safety erase the usb key and unplug it.

It’s a bit of a tedious way to boot, but with a few small scripts, I guess it’ll only take a few minutes.

And with tools such as Ventoy, everything can fit into a single usb device: the popular distro + the encrypted archive + some space to extract the iso.

But I don’t think yet how to manage peristant data, to keet Qubes up to date. The footprint in RAM must remain small.

Here are some open tickets about such a version (in which you’re mentioned):

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

implement live boot by porting grub-live to Qubes - amnesia / non-persistent boot / anti-forensics

opened 11:17AM - 18 Apr 19 UTC

adrelanos

help wanted C: other privacy P: default

https://github.com/Kicksecure/grub-live [0] is a tiny, simple package with a few… dependencies (available from packages.debian.org) that can be installed on Debian [1] hosts which adds a live boot menu entry, which means, the operating system gets booted non-persistently. All changes go to RAM instead of disk. It might not be perfectly amnesic as per [1], [2] but it might be a huge step towards amnesic Qubes? Not tested for anti-forensics yet but should be doable to test. [4] Could grub-live be ported to Qubes? Am I overlooking something? //cc @Algernon-01 (original author of grub-live) * [0] https://forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-live-mode/3894/121 * [1] And likely Debian based and other grub based distributions. * [2] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1562 * [3] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1563 * [4] https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Technical_Introduction#Forensics

Here I’ve found a guide, to build an ISO image from your current system:
www . linuxuprising . com/2023/03/how-to-turn-your-current-system-to.html
Or a script here:
unix . stackexchange . com/questions/678232/creating-a-bootable-iso-image-from-my-current-installation
(sorry, I’m a new user, I’m limited to posting external links. Edit my post and remove them if they are bad).

And to boot from RAM, Ubutun-derived distros seem to have a ‘toram’ boot option:
askubuntu . com/questions/1268925/customize-ubuntu-iso-file-to-boot-automatically-from-ram
unix . stackexchange . com/questions/769384/boot-linux-into-ram-from-iso-file-on-hard-drive-and-do-a-clean-linux-reinstallat
Does Qubes supports this option?

Ventoy has a ‘memdisk’ mode, but seems to be limited to 1GB for ISO file size.
I heard YUMI USB or Easy2boot might be able to do it. I haven’t checked.

I don’t have the time to test all this yet. It’s just a conceptual idea, with a few hints that I’m sharing here.

Or, alternatively, can QubesOS be launched inside VirtualBox, like any other distribution?