Short Article / Explanation
I've been using Qubes for upwards of three years. Out of those three years I've experienced three system wrecking crashes.-
The first it wasn’t my fault rather Qubes wasn’t able to update my version of Qubes and transferring system logs from dom0 was even more of a pain than it is now. So I had to fresh install after deeming it unfixable
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The second it was my fault I accidentally tore out boot-related files after using gparted so the whole system froze. Then, collapsed like it got shot or something. At the time the only services available to help were the google mailing list and matrix. Both of which were borderline insane to get to while all my credentials, emails, etc were locked inside of Qubes. That time I did go get support. But even though I was able to provide the dom0 logs they had no solution and suggested I either code a solution myself or reset they were friendly though. I happened to be lucky enough to code my only solution was coding a program to mount every last VM’s volume then copy the whole directory inside of them each into a folder with a label with their names on it because otherwise its a mystery what’s inside. I then double checked each VM’s volume to make sure I missed nothing.
But. Then, now the Third Time
This would be the third time, its my first time using this forum since for me its fairly new in comparison with the older forms of communication. I can't get the qubes-daemon to run it just resets again. And that pretty much cripples the system because:no qubes-daemon = no firewall-vm = i'm screwed
I’ve tried restarting the daemon service. Heck even if I wanted to I can’t even reinstall it for obvious reasons.
tl;dr / My Actual Question
It’s been years, is there a better solution to copying VM’s volumes besides “emergency” backups? (Which as I remember were more so designed for full blown system failure or full system compromise. Rather than actual migration of your vms and dom0 configurations. The password protection just farther complicates it if you lost your keepass.)
Because seriously, even when I did backup the saves got quickly outdated given it works kinda clunky since it doesn’t work like more modern backup solutions that work as background processes / daemon rather it works like a long process of selecting particular vms for backup. There’s not really any system to easily automate backups in the background and migration is pretty poorly implemented from a programmer and end-user standpoint and I love qubes don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t have used it for that long, but
Take windows for instance. If I reinstalled windows onto windows it’d quickly look through the files and offer easy migration. With Qubes I can’t look at the VM’s volumes / Old VMs using the installer I can’t easily migrate. I was able to code a better migration system for Qubes 3.0 within less than a month as a single programmer. And its not even a full blown library its a python script. However I have no clue if it’ll work with the newer currently broke version of qubes I have now. And unlike almost every other version of linux there is no real emergency mode that can help install / replace broken packages and services I need atleast not one that compares to say regular Debain or regular Fedora or Linux Mint as much as I hate to say. So what can I do?