Tiling and focus stealing in Qubes Whonix: Is it possible? What are the risks?

Random4941 · January 31, 2022, 2:01pm

Tiling and Focus Stealing

(Haven’t used qubes yet). In particular for only the whinox template (but could be an questions for templates in general). Is it safe to use more then one whinox vm at once, if it is safe how do you guys go about putting them side by side (tiling) safely. Another question that can go along with this aswell, how can focus stealing be prevent in the qubes whinox template between vms

I ask this because I want to be able to safely use multiple vms if it doesn’t put me at risk. I don’t want identities to mix.

fsflover · January 31, 2022, 3:44pm

This looks more like a Whonix question than Qubes one. It’s recommended to ask such question on the Whonix forum. This is probably the answer you are looking for: Multiple Whonix-Workstation ™.

Also this:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

window focus issue

opened 04:27PM - 31 Oct 17 UTC

raffaeleflorio

T: bug C: gui-virtualization P: major needs diagnosis

#### Qubes OS version:  R3.2 #### Affected TemplateVMs:  fedora-25 --- ### Steps to reproduce the behavior: Every program should be opened in the same qube. A real world effect is reached in this way: 1. Open two terminals. 2. Hook one terminal to the left, and one to the right. They should be on the same workspace only for comfort. 3. Go to another workspace. 4. Open some webpage and maximize it. 5. Remember a link's position. 6. Focus the terminal that doesn't cover the link position. 7. Focus the browser. 8. Go to the terminal's workspace. 9. Click on link's position in the terminal that covers it. 10. In the webpage the link is clicked. **UPDATE 1** With xev: 1. Open two terminals. 2. Hook one terminal to the left, and one to the right. They should be on the same workspace only for comfort. 3. Open xev with one terminal. 4. Move xev in another workspace. 5. Maximize xev. 6. Move to the terminal's workspace. 7. Move the mouse on the terminals. 8. Xev receives input. **UPDATE 2** Stolen keyboard input: 1. Open two terminals. 2. Hook one terminal to the left, and one to the right. They should be on the same workspace only for comfort. 3. Open gnome-terminal (however it's not related to gnome-terminal) and echo an URL. Remember URL position. 4. Move gnome-terminal to another workspace. 5. Move to the two terminals workspace. 6. Focus the terminal that doesn't cover the URL (the right one, if ltr). 7. Focus gnome-terminal. 8. Move to the two terminals workspace. 9. CTRL+CLICK on the URL position on the unfocused terminal. 10. The URL is opened. **UPDATE 3** Stolen keyboard input can be reproduced also with browser (e.g. CTRL+CLICK on a link). Actually a previous focused program (like xev or the browser) receive input iff an unfocused window and the former overlap. Furthermore input is stolen until a click happens on the unfocused window. For example, in the first case, if the browser and the _unfocused_ terminal overlap, the click on the terminal is stolen by the browser. After that the browser cannot steal more. ### Expected behavior: Unfocused window doesn't have to get input. ### Actual behavior: Unfocused window get input. ### General notes: Thanks to secure gui, It affects only programs opened in the same VM. However it isn't related to any particular window or qube. This issue isn't related to any particular windows order. **UPDATE 4** I think that it's related to Xorg --- #### Related issues:

deeplow · January 31, 2022, 4:30pm

(made title a bit more descriptive)

brendanhoar · January 31, 2022, 5:10pm

Not a security control by any means but you do know you can increase the number of workspaces (which default to four) and keyboard navigate between them?

I generally don’t like having multiple contexts on the screen at the same time, so I set my default to 16 workspaces so that I can spread out activities. And Ctrl-alt left/right to move between them, ctrl-alt home/end to move windows. By default new windows appear where you are so, again, xfce workspaces are not a security control, move stuff to where it needs to be or use add-on tools/configs that tell your window manager to enforce certain VM windows to certain workspaces.

Summary: workspaces do help a bit with inadvertent keying into the wrong security context.

Random4941 · January 31, 2022, 7:13pm

Please note mainly asking this question because I’m looking how to safely input passwords for an offline vault vm to another vm where I will need to input the password.

My bad I though that an vm and an workstation or workspaces were two different things, now I understand they are one in the same. And someone else had referred me to ask the question here aswell.

By bad lol you guys gone have to dumb it dow. For me. Just have used never qubes yet.

Does doing what you explain above “Brendanhoar” Eliminate the possibility of focus stealing and the best way to safely use multiple vms?

What you have said My understanding is that you are having 1 vm per workspace/ workstation, is that true? An example of this would be having chrome and Firefox on your phone and having 1 tab on each browser, then you switch between.

adw · February 1, 2022, 12:38pm

Last I checked, resizing the Tor Browser window results in a more unique fingerprint, so be careful with that.