I updated qubes recently and was told that it couldn’t update through dom0 and would use a VM instead. I should not have updated it until I found out about this but I’m relatively new to qubes and went ahead. The following day I was not able to open my encrypted hard drive and have since lost all my data so am unable to examine the logs. Of course the two issues may be unrelated but I would like to hear from anyone who may have had similar issues…
Many thanks…
Sorry to hear about your issue.
Could you explain a bit more on:
I should not have updated it until I found out about this but I’m relatively new to qubes and went ahead.
What exactly did you run in dom0? It should always use an UpdateVM (like sys-net or sys-firewall, for example); there’s no way around it.
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Hi padhi,
I used the system update tray and ticked the various vm’s and templates that needed updating… After that It told me that I was unable to update through dom0 and it would use a template instead. After that it appeared to go through the proper process of updating and I checked the automatic logs that it produced and everything seemed all right but I am not an expert in understanding the output. I did update the same way of at least four occasions over the last six months and everything seemed to be fine… I’m of course wondering if I have been hacked here for this to happen or is that just plain paranoia at this stage?
Many thanks for your fast response…
Do you mean you used Qubes Update tool(which appears in notification area) ?
Do you mean you used Qubes Update tool(which appears in notification area) ?
Yes, that is correct!
Looks like you did everything right. This is the recommended way of updating Qubes OS. What do you mean by “I was unable to update through dom0”?
Please create a separate topic for your other issue, and the community will try to help.
What do you mean by “I was unable to update through dom0”?
I cannot remember whether it came up on the updater app itself or a separate warning screen but it said something like “Cannot update using Dom0, will update using Banking VM” choices were Yes/Cancel. Thinking about it this was probably a separate warning screen…
This question looks really strange to me, never seen anything like that. Every window in Qubes has a colorful border showing a VM color. I wonder, which VM was asking this question. You should always look at the borders to see if you can trust the question. Also, you can take screenshots with PrtScr and save them in dom0, just in case, every time you see something suspicious…
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I believe this was not a screen but a small pop-up, I didn’t notice any surrounding colours which led me to believe that it was a dom0 message… It’s now nearly three weeks ago so my memory is rusty here and it may well have been a message within the update app itself… yes I certainly take your point about all the things I should have done at the time such as screen print, better still not to have attempted the update until I had been on qubes forum… I’m sorry I can’t be of more help in telling you what happened… it’s always surprises me how the mind goes fuzzy with information overload, I was dealing with a nitrokey security dongle at the same time which was also new technology for me… I’m now attempting to reboot my nitropad up from scratch without the dongle as it can’t be reset which should also be an interesting exercise…
Another of the reasons I thought it could be a security compromise is that I only had 5 attempts at the password not the accustomed 15 attempts. The laptop has not been out of my sight and I had it delivered with the full security package… I’ve been in touch with Nitrokey and they have not suggested it was a security breech… Having said that, your comment “This question looks really strange to me, never since anything like that” does seem as though it could be a security issue!
Don’t worry, it happens to all of us. Making your life more secure is a long road, so it’s better to do it in smaller steps…
Well, it sill seems unlikely to me. Even if an untrusted VM asked you to perform an update and you agreed, it should not have any possibility to touch dom0, thanks to the secure design of Qubes OS.
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Then don’t worry it’s the right way.
I’ve never exprienced being unable to update through dom0 or any thing like it.
As fsflover said even if it was security issue because you’ve reinstalled qubes os it’s really unlikely that there is any risk
I’m no expert either , having issues happens to all of us