Qubes password

ceomi · December 5, 2023, 12:25pm

Would it be possible to protect a sepcific qube by password?

apparatus · December 5, 2023, 1:04pm

You can store this qube in a separate encrypted container:

Maybe there’re some easier ways to do this, try to search the forum.

adw · December 6, 2023, 10:40am

This is an oft-requested feature that has not been implemented thus far:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Per-VM encryption

opened 08:22PM - 07 Oct 15 UTC

qubesuser

T: enhancement help wanted C: core P: major cryptography bounty C: storage

Currently volatile.img is stored unencrypted and includes swap, which means that… anyone compromising dom0 or getting past full disk encryption can potentially read things that were in application memory of any VM at any point in past time, if it happened to be swapped out and the sectors were not overwritten. This can be avoided by mounting volatile.img using DM crypt and a randomly generated key on each bootup that is then naturally destroyed on shutdown. Likewise, not encrypting private.img means that it is not possible to securely delete a VM in a way that is fully resistant to future compromises since the data may be preserved in unused or reallocated sectors. In this case there is the additional problem of having to encrypt the keys with a master key stored in a way that can be securely deleted/changed (options could be on paper or in the TPM). There is a performance downside due to having to encrypt the data twice (once for the volatile.img/private.img encryption, once for full disk encryption); this could theoretically be avoided, but it seems that would require major changes.