Updating/restarting dom0

The Qubes GUI updater in 4.2 is great and helps keep track of which qubes should be restarted after an update. Does it indicate when dom0 should be restarted which I think means rebooting the hardware?

No. Not yet (as far as I am aware).

Yes. For example if Xen is updated, you would better reboot the hardware.

p.s. I have to look at “needs restarting plugin” of DNF5. This is a feature which would better be implemented in r4.3

I don’t see many dom0 updates coming through the GUI. Why would it be updated less frequently than the templates?

If something like systemd is updated in a template wouldn’t it likely need to be updated in dom0 as well?

There are two major reasons. 1st of all, there is an effort to keep dom0 as minimal as possible. There is much less software installed on it compared to a full-fledged XFCE template. Hence less updated compared to it. 2nd reason is that dom0 is Fedora 37 based on Qubes r4.2 and it mostly receives back-ported security related updates by Qubes OS team. Not functionality updates.

Not necessarily at the same time. The new systemd update might land at different times on Fedora vs. Debian. Or it might not ship at all for Fedora 37 based dom0 (if the update is not security related). It should be noted that users would most likely experience more dom0 updates on Qubes r4.3 (next release) which will have Fedora 41 for dom0.

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@qubesrocks does make a good point, though.

Is there any mechanism at all to “remind” the user that dom0 has been updated, and that they should reboot when convenient?

I mean, experienced Qubes OS veterans will know that it’s time to reboot the machine when dom0 updates break qrexec, and nothing works any more. (Or, at least, restart every running qube)

But maybe a new user might need a bit of a nudge? :slight_smile:

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No. Not at the moment. Related:

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