I previously created many templates for AppVMs based on other templates but now I cannot seem to do this and suspect it’s either a bug or “best practices” have changed without me being able to find any reference of it.
Normally, I would be able to create with UI as Type = TemplateVM, select a template to base my new template on, and have no issue. Now, the “Template” selector is disabled and doesn’t let me do this…
If I try via qvm-create, it tells me I can’t do that:
$ qvm-create t-vpn-wg-f41 --class TemplateVM --label red --template fedora-41
app: Error creating VM: TemplateVM cannot be based on template
To be clear, I am NOT trying to create a “disposable template”, I am attempting to create a template that other stateful AppVMs will use.
As examples of my use-cases, I have a debian-12-dev template that was based on the QubesOS provided debian-12 that I use as a quick start for isolated development environments. I have an office template I use as a base for each business entity I interact with. These templates were all created with the “Create new qube” UI that doesn’t seem to let me do this now.
Is this just a bug or do I need to change the way I build out my workflows? Is there a workaround to re-enable the ability to create templates based on other templates?
Edit: I realized I can just clone existing templates but still would like to know if this is just a bug or if I’m just doing everything wrong.
How do updates propagate using the cloning technique?
For example, if one clones the default debian template to create template_a, will updates from the default debian template be propagated to template_a when the default debian template is updated?
If you have a number of templates, you should consider replacing the
default tinyproxy with a caching proxy - this reduces the amount of time taken
in updates, and considerably reduces the download hit.
I use apt-cacher-ng, which I package here from GitHub source
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.
