Template vs appVM disk space allocation

User Support General
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1

So, is this correct?

IMG_2368
IMG_23681179×1177 122 KB

Image Description:

– START IMAGE DESCRIPTION –

3 qubes representing the appVMs from the Templated base iso image of an OS.

1st QUBED 3D square image =

1 side says the OS minimum requirements,
“4G RAM, 15G hard disk”

The top side describes its appVM config as,
“Disposable 8G RAM, 5G hard disk”

The final 3rd facing front side has install and functional descriptors as,
“[bullet point] Banking” then goes on to list the software installed,
“[package box icon] Libre Wolf
[package box icon] Thunderbird
[package box icon] Libre Office”

2nd QUBED 3D square image =

1 side says the OS minimum requirements,
“4G RAM, 15G hard disk”

The top side describes its appVM config as,
“Disposable 8G RAM, 5G hard disk”

The final 3rd facing front side has install and functional descriptors as,
“[bullet point] Finance” then goes on to list the software installed,
“[package box icon] Libre Wolf
[package box icon] Thunderbird
[package box icon] Libre Office”

3rd (last) QUBED 3D square image =

1 side says the OS minimum requirements,
“4G RAM, 15G hard disk”

The top side describes its appVM config as,
“[in bold red letters] Persistent [end of bold red letters] 8G RAM, 5G hard disk”

The final 3rd facing front side has install and functional descriptors as,
“[bullet point] IRS / Taxes” then goes on to list the software installed,
“[package box icon] Libre Wolf
[package box icon] Thunderbird
[package box icon] Libre Office”

• NOTE:
The mention of the OS for the Template was redacted in all 3 qube appVM image depictions

– END OF IMAGE DESCRIPTION –

The iso for the Template will take up 15G hard disk, however when I go to allot user data storage that is separate and so I have decided on allocating 5G of user data disk space — plus 2 out of these 3 qube appVMs are disposable

Also, if 2 of these qube appVMs are running simultaneously then that means 8G of RAM will be used but only 15G + 5G + 5G = 25G of hard disk will be used if the user fills the allotted space — but it will not be 15G + 15G + 5G + 5G as the two qube appVMs will use the same root Template thus only 1 allocation of 15G will happen not double it.

Yes/No?

2

I didn’t understand your image (even with the description :sweat_smile:) but to answer your questions:

  • your 2 qubes will take up to 8G RAM
  • as for disk space:
    • your template will use up to 15G
    • the qube serving as disposable template will take up to 5G
    • the non-disposable one will take up to 5G
    • each running disposable will take up to 5G

So imaging that you run the two disposable qubes and that you run out of space in each one, their disposable template and the template used by the disposable template, you will need more like 15G + 5G + 10G = 30G. And if each disposable has his own disposable template, add 5G.

User space can be managed quite easily after qube creation so, don’t worry too much about this.

1 Like
3

I was unaware of this.
So I can manage the space afterwords without having to start from recreating the qube appVM all over again?
Okay good to know

4

So where did the 10G come from

The 2 qube appVMs running out of the 3 which are all allocated 5G disk space?

So your saying even at “rest” all 3 will still take up 5G total even if not all 5G is being used yet? Plus the 15G allocated as the requirement for the OS iso? Of which yes that would all = 30G then

5

Follow-up question:

What if I was paranoid and wanted to use a sole Template for the Persistent qube appVM.
Thereby repeating the Template twice, 1 Template would serve as root to the 2 Disposables while a different Template would be dedicated to the Persistent qube appVM. Is the OS iso disk allocation still going to be 15G, or with 2 Templates created with the iso OS image will it be 15G + 15G because of having the base Template repeated twice?

6

Thanks for the detailed description. (I think it was a little too
detailed, but OK.)

You have to understand that these are allocations - the disk space
is not actually used on your disk until you start filling up the drives
allocated to your qubes.
If you find you are running out of space in the qube, you can resize the
drive on the fly using the GUI settings. (Not reduce size - you dont
need to do this.)

Many people have allocated space far in excess of the actual available
space - this is thin provisioning. Look it up.

Qubes will warn you if you are at risk of running out of actual space.

I dont think you mean a lot of what you say.
By “Persistent qube appVM” I assume you mean standalone. (Look at the
glossary
I dont understand what the “OS iso disk allocation” means - I think that
at your level you should use the OS provided by Qubes. When you are used
to Qubes and understand the principles better , then you can consider
using HVMs.

But if you insist on creating an HVM from an iso, (where you take on the
whole risk of configuring that HVM), then each template will have
allocations of 15G, but only use the space taken up by the HVM.

If you clone a template, then the clone will have allocation the
same as the original but will only take up space as it differs from the
base.
There is nothing Qubes specific here - it’s a feature of lvm that Qubes
leverages - you can find many guides online.

1 Like
7

10G as for 5G x2 disposable qubes

Remember: a disposable is like a temporary qubes, it will use disk space only when running.

Just try to do what you want to achieve with some test templates, test appvms, test disposables, etc. Fill them with data (ie: with dd or else) and see what happens.

1 Like
8

Had no idea, I will search using “lvm” then thanks

9

Thanks for clarifying this!