Understanding default-mgmt-dvm

[apparatus]

@qubist

I have read this before opening the thread. It is not quite clear to me what “management” means (except Salt configuration), i.e. what else does management include?

As I understand it - it’s just a DVM that is used to run different internal Qubes OS tasks outside of dom0. default_dispvm is for user to configure and use and it may not satisfy the requirements to be used for running management tasks so they created separate management_dispvm for this that is not supposed to be used by user.
The fastest way to know where it is used is to search for management_dispvm and default-mgmt-dvm strings in the whole Qubes OS github repo.

@Bearillo

How do I automate the usage of such a management vm, e.g. have it interact with a qube so I don’t have to use qvm-run --pass-io in dom0? Basically what one could do manually by using qvm-console-dispvm (which IIUC will spawn a disposable based on default-mgmt-dvm), but having the ability to pass commands via a script, similarly to how I could from dom0 do e.g. [[ "$(qvm-run --pass-io targetVM -- mycommand)" == "compareValue" ]] && otherCommand, just without having to expose dom0 to the returned and possibly malicious data.

I think this one is unrelated to the topic and it’s better to create a new topic with a subject like “How to securely use in dom0 the result of a command executed in a qube”.