Qubes OS: How it works, and a demo of this VM-centric OS
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- čas přidán 20. 08. 2024
- This unique and secure distro runs everything under separate virtual machines. Even the desktop itself! The idea is to have different VM's be used for different tasks (work, personal life), but it goes further than that. Let's have a look.
Get Qubes OS : www.qubes-os.org/
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MrGamer (@AndreasRohdin): / gamermachine
#Linux #Qubes #QubesOS
![I used the reasonably-secure Qubes OS for 6 months and survived - Matty McFatty [@themattymcfatty]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sbN5Bz3v-uA/mqdefault.jpg)
1. Never heard of Qubes before
2. Ashamed to admit I have never heard of it before
3. Just hit the 10 minute mark and now need to spend the rest of this week wiping out a xeon machine and going down the rabbit hole.
Thanks for ruining my schedule for the rest of the week! HAHAHA
Haha sorry about that but I hope you have fun! 👍
@@NicholasMaietta This is interesting. I called Dell a few days ago and the salesman in India knew little of Qubes. So he asked me what I think I needed. QPrecision 7820 Tower 950 watt PCIe Flexbay Chassis CL. Intel Xeon Silver 4208 2.1 GHz,(3.2 GHz Turbo, 8C, 9.6GT/s 2UPI, 11MB Cache, HT (85W) DDR4-2400), Windows 10 Pro 4 Cores Plus, NVIDIA Quadro P1000, 4GB, 4 mDP (7X20T), 32GB 4X8GB DDR4 2293MHz RDIMM ECC Memory, M.2 1TB PCLe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive Price $4,516.86 I pay $3,152.20. I had a feeling I had to run this by some men that already run Qubes. What do you think? Thank you.
@@ArtOfHealth I currently run Qubes OS on my Xplore ix104C6 tablet. it doesn't come with an onscreen keyboard so i have a USB keyboard I plug in. the tablet 2in1 only has an intel i5-4300u w/ integrated graphics, and 16GB of DDR3 1600 ram (2x8GB). Its a relatively lightweight OS (for what it does, not saying its the most lightweight by far.) and can run on a single battery charge for 4-6 hours depending on the workload. You don't need a crazy powerful system for Qubes, just a processor that allows virtualization and 16GB of RAM (you can get by with 8 but only barely)
@@SaxaphoneMan42 I appreciate the clarification very much! Thanks
literally me right now 👍
"I use Linux."
"Oh, yeah? Which version?"
"Yes."
I've been using Qubes for around 2-3 years now. Not exclusively, but I missed it a lot when I was running something else. I can't really describe it, but it's the only OS where I actually feel like I'm in complete control of my computer and the applications running on it, not that they're controlling me and using my machine however they like. I'm very happy to see someone with a following giving it some more coverage! A couple of things came to mind which you didn't touch on though, so I thought I'd add a quick comment: 1. You can manually assign bits of physical hardware to individual VMs (i.e. graphics cards, or USB controllers) - I do this to give my Windows 10 gaming VM direct access to the GPU and get (almost) native performance in most games. 2. You kind of touched on it, but didn't outright mention that you can keep a VM completely isolated from the network if you like, so you can use it basically as an air-gapped machine to store your password vault or bitcoin wallets, etc. You can easily copy and paste passwords out of your offline VM (or between any VM) with a special shortcut (Ctrl-Shift-C/V)
Is gaming, or steam possible?
In the case of hardware pass-through, there will be some of exploitable holes that co-exist with the hardware itself in the case of performance, but still it's very rare since most of hardware are proprietary and still in practice.
@@ZeginMakesMusic there's issues with GPU passthrough and such - you can research it but basically the performance drain makes it not worth it or not practical
you can do almost the same thing with any other distro and KVM. not sure I would run this as a daily driver
Been using for a year and really love it. Never going back. Buying a 32gb RAM Dell XPS 13 soon to have a LOT of VMs open at the same time because I'm a hardcore user
Lucas Zanella Nice!
@@electricimpulsetoprogramming use snaps, install qubes-snapd-helper on templates from apt
@@electricimpulsetoprogramming call me on telegram if you need help, there are lots of improvements that aren't om the website, that can be made.
yeah, that's something I noticed too after using it more seriously than the first time I installed it. If you want to include all your purpose built VM"s for your action sequences they'll need their own allocation of RAM. and that can build up quick if you're not carefull. Having a seperate VM for your VPN and then do you use a seperate VM for each of your services like done with your Firewall. You have to way the pro's and con's of each and having more RAM definitly gives more options and flexibility. Some of the VM's based pm linux distro's can even support your window's VM if you're into that kind of thing.
@@geekionizado snap and Vm on same machine,
what are you using Quantum computer ?
Great overview of Qubes. What you said at 24:01 is so accurate! The idea of privacy & security are not absolute. The reality is often misunderstood & undermined by tools/apps that give a perception of anonymity. I can assure you: nothing you do on an internet connection is beyond reach. Full Disk Encryption, multi-layered encryption containers, long & complex passwords, MFA, etc. (which I use & recommend) are still vulnerable. The best you can do is make your data exceedingly difficult to exploitation. Unless the reward of such effort will bear fruit attackers will move to another target.
Wonderful video. Thank you for taking the time to explain all of this to us.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I like how detailed you are when doing your demonstration. You're very clear and pedagogical. And you enunciate and pronounce your words clearly without a lot of uhms and ahs, which actually isn't always the case with all youtubers. Great work!
nice video, not like other distro reviewer that just seems clueless when using this distro and make me confused, you explain how this distro works really well, and makes me interested trying qubes
The perfect OS, this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks. Just subscribed to this channel.
This is mind blowing
It would be neat to see a less-tinfoil-hat-y hypervisor-centric OS like this.
An ordinary-looking Linux distro that just happens to have a simple way to
install applications into a virtual machine and x11-forward it your main desktop.
I could see a large market of intermediate to advanced level users that would want something like that.
Watching the news last night ... need to give Qubes a try.
Thanks, heard about qubes for a while now but this is the first time I got a feel for its practical usability. Like others said, it seems a lot like docker like containerization applied to a personal computing environment. Nice. Always felt slightly annoyed I had to install some work related stuff on my personal (windows) machine and this seems like an elegant solution (been using ‘heavy’ VMs for the same reason, but this is easier maintenance-wise for not having to update each VM separately)
The power of open source. Thanks for such a simple and on point explanation about Qube OS. Will certainly try it because I think its the answer to so many privacy questions.
This is my first time knowing Qubes, soon I'll use this OS for the new PC. Really concise and good introduction video man!
Thank you!
Amazing explanation of Qubes. Thanks!
This is on the edge of my understanding but I feel this is really powerful stuff just from this brief overview. Thanks for sharing.
WOW, Thank you. Found out about Qubes on a feed on secure OS, I was hoping to using it but was not sure what it was capable of. Your video is excellent it gave me a very clear understanding of its setup and what it is capable of with out me having to go through weeks of rebuilds. I have a few hardware VM and storage servers at home and wanted to figure out how to rebuild an old system for VM for training on Linux and appliances as well as windows this is a totally awesome OS build for quick Virtual lab builds and tear downs in a single Box. THANKS Again...
Thanks so much!
Dom0 arigato for explaining this interesting OS. I had wondered for a while if there are any 'pure' virtualization or docker container like OS.
I see what you did there ;)
Im absolutely in love with the concept 💗 will switch to it as my main for some time and see how things work out.. the awesome documentation really tells everything how much those guys and gurls are invested in the project!
Definitely gonna add this to my list of must try linux distributions...amazing content for the channel 100%! Nice 1
Thank you!
Loved this short and informative video. Time to learn Qubes!
Freaaking amazing implementation of virtualization in typical desktop 'workflow' !
This is a fantastic description of Qubes. Much appreciated.
Now I know what to do with the laptop from my kitchen window.. - it's going to have Qubes on it. Thank you, nice video / presentation!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it 👍
Make sure the CPU supports virtualization requirements. That's what prevented me from doing the same thing...
nice video, thanks for sharing. very interesting and reminds me of Kubernetes and Container technology with those templates and disposable vm's
Kraky Krake Yes it can be very handy for not only privacy but also good for isolating applications and doing some quick testing as well.
I find Qubes very interesting, and I love the theory behind it.
I can see it being incredibly useful as a testing platform, and I think I've got to have a go at that soon.
Is there a possibility to do hardware passthrough to VMs, like passing a dedicated GPU, a disk or something like that?
It is interesting indeed. I know you can create a special VM for direct access to USB’s so I imagine you can do the same for other things. I just haven’t tested any of that. The documentation has lots of info.
@@Doriandotslash yeah, I'm gonna do a deep dive into the documentation. Cheers. :)
Yeah, you can pass GPUs and disks to specific VMs. I do that to have a Windows gaming VM with direct access to the GPU and pass it a disk which contains my Steam library.
@@dan_ thank you, that's what I was aiming for. Going to give it a spin, see how things fare. :)
Would be fun to make a cyberlab/pentesting/gaming out of this (maybe I can play my Steam games somewhere inside a Windows 10 template while doing a GPU passthrough).
Tried QubeOS 3.X some years ago. It's an interesting concept, but steep learning curve to get going. Especially when you want to create a new template. Wondering if it would be safe enough to use as sandboxes for Sec Operations.
Thomas Vanduren It would be a good tool for testing and running isolated applications and is probably better than a standard distro for such things.
Many journalists & professionals who experience heightened cybersecurity risk utilize the compartmentalization of Qubes to lessen vulnerability. For example, opening questionable files or USB in a Disposable VM is basic security. No OS is perfect, but conscious mitigation of risk by recognizing & eliminating potential attack vectors is a good first step.
This OS should be just called Inception
This video helped me understand how the Qubes even worked and the general philosophy behind the system. It gets confusing trying to understand the difference between a Template, a DVM, a Disposable, AppVM. I think they should really update their terminology even further lol DisposableVM and Disposable Templates are so easy to mix up.
Thank you is not enough you saved a lot of my time
Very Good Explanation! Thanks!
You're welcome!
Dorian, there is no Qubes guide series. I think is good idea to make it especially when times are not secure lasy years and hacking is everywhere.
I like Qubes very much, thank You. ✌️
This was very helpful, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks, great introduction.
Great video! I didn't use QubesOS or Fedora before, so I have a few questions about the customized desktop environment (looks a bit like cinnamon).
Is it possible to customize it in the settings or do you need extra plug-ins (e.g. for the temperature display) or desktop themes and if yes, which ones did u use?
It's looking pretty clean and I like it a lot! Thanks in advance and have a good one.
Greetings
Fedora sucks, it takes so so many time for network driver
I would be interested to see how this operating system works with wine for windows applications.
❤ I subscribed to your channel because of this video.
Good job on the video!
Would be cool to see a snowden level balls to wall type example.
Like try booting Tails OS with a persistent flashdrive, then installing a VM running cubes in that.
That would be cool! But as I mentioned, running Qubes in a VM doesn't really work unfortunately.
Nice explanation. It has a design that looks very useful for crypto & stock exchanges and banking as mentioned
An excellent video which explains a lot. Two questions are the files you keep encrypted by default or do you need to install a seperate application. Also, is there a password manager that you can use that will work on the VM's?
Thanks! You can enable encryption as required. And all the VM's can install any package available for their distro. By default there are Fedora and Debian VM's, so whatever password managers are available for those can be installed in the VM's.
The apps and how they are segregated and those various features make sense. What is unclear to me is the network configuration. For your firewall or lets say you want to use a VPN and push all internet connected apps (VMs that have an assigned NW interface), is additional configuration needed or is this handled somehow by the hypervisor itself?
Another strange question...if you wish to run a VM (for the purpose of getting other OS features), you are essentially running a VM within a VM, which is a little odd if you ask me, but just thought that was a bit funny.
Great video
Thanks!
Thank you so much, friend i liked the way that you explained everything. I really would like to know how did you installed Papirus Icon Theme on Qubes OS, I've been training but i couldn't. Please help me.
I've been looking at Qubes for a while but i'm scared to make the jump and install it because i'm not as confident as i'd like to be with Linux. Ideally i'd like to install windows on Qubes and use that as my main machine but i'm not sure how easy that is to do. And i'm not sure how compatible it is with gaming. There's also not a lot beginner friendly tutorials out there about how to use it.
this is definitely not for gaming since it's mostly virtualization, i would recommend if you are looking for security use a virtual machine and run either linux mint or debian, or if you want to have the most out of a linux distro, dualboot your machine, and limit windows for games only, that's how i never got viruses, this os is mostly for privacy and anonymity
Nice, very nice. Thank you !!
Thank you! Cheers!
How did you achieve this clean look? I mean those nice window frames. Is there full dark theme support?
This is using the Arc theme. You can download and use any theme you want, and use the Appearance settings to set your theme.
AWESOME!
I didn't find this confusing. It's the OS that Ed Snowden uses. More than I'll ever need (until I have a government job) 😜
It's not something I would use for regular daily use, but I can see it's benefits for certain cases!
@@Doriandotslash what kind of cases ?
Thank you very much !
Great video thanks.
I didn't have a tinfoil hat handy, but I am quickly manufacturing one. I hope aluminium foil will make a satisfactory replacement.
lol
Great! Thanks!
I like your tutorial on Qubes os it has a lot of good info. could you please make a CZcams on qubes with secondary storage.
1. Do you run it natively on your machine as main OS or through a virtual machine
2. Can i use macbook pro and run it through a virtual machine?
3. What about ip addresses within one secure machine created within qubes os ? Do you still need vpn within that environment or can you just work within the machine securely without worry about ip?
4. Can you use windows with full gaming performance within one of the machines without issues
1. No, it doesn't run in a VM very well without lots of hacking
2. See #1
3. You can use a VPN as an additional security layer
4. I doubt it.
Snowden runs this OS. If you want to be super secure then use Qubes.
The biggest flaw I see with this is that even when the VM started on the fly is shut down there is still trace on the HD....seems to be a bit of a moo point if you just want to open a VM for temporary disposable work....when Dorian says it will be gone from your machine it isn't really unless you use other software to erase what ever it is that reamained from the VM session...hmmm...to me a deffo flaw...
Well, for a disposable machine, the temporary storage it uses gets deleted when shut down. If you run an SSD, the trim feature of SSD's will make that data unrecoverable. If you're running a mechanical hard disk, you could always set up a job that routinely wipes the free space.
Inception of Vms !!
Yeah, and that system was v created by polish woman Joanna Rutkowska - security specialist ;))) fantastic thing! Thx for great explanation
Dorian- what computer/laptop you using? I understand you must use a minimum of a RYZEN 7, 16 gigs of ram with an SSD.
It was running on an old laptop with a 6th Gen i7 and 16GB of RAM. The CPU and RAM required really depends on how many different Qubes you plan on running and how much you allocate to each one.
@7:28
"You can transfer things (files) from one machine to the other. You just right-click..."
Understood. But can you move or copy files, via a terminal session, from one VM to different VM? Or is this strictly a GUI feature?
Excellent tutorial, by the way.
Yes you can! There are several different commands for this. For between VM's there is qvm-copy and qvm-move, but there are also 2 other commands from copying to and from Dom0 if you ever needed to. qvm-copy-to-vm is for Dom0 to a VM, but from a VM to Dom0 is a little more complicated and a longer command using qvm-run and cat together. It should all be in their documentation on their website if you want more specific examples.
@@Doriandotslash Thanks for the fast reply.
One more question comes to mind for copying files between VMs via the terminal:
Can you set up the VMs to see each other and allow for "scp" to connect and do its thing?
Thanks, again.
@@NoEgg4u That I'm not sure about. Never tried
Very interesting. This looks like an ideal system to test software and not end up with all the leftovers. It seems quite snappy as well. Could you also disclose the hardware you're running it on?
It would be nice for testing software yes. I’m on an i7 6th gen with 16GB of RAM.
Montana Taken You are interesting. Men from Montana do things bigger than men from Texas! Rob Braxman just got an MIS. He loves it. That's a lot of RAM🤒
@@Doriandotslash I have mine running on an Intel NUC with16GB of RAM. Very handy to show people. Just wish it had ps2 ports so I could more easily implement “evil maid” usb protection.
Man I just want to be left alone. I'm not doing any illegal shit I just want privacy. Same as when I'm taking an evening walk and get questioned by the cops because apparently I don't look like I 'belong' in my neighborhood.
Thank you 🙂
Awesome review, can you also do a Windows 10 install on Qubes. That would be great.
Thank you. Yes, apparently you can create Windows VMs according to their docs, although I haven’t tried it myself.
A how to on getting windows to run on Qubes would be super appreciated 😏
I think you can only install windows 7
@@Wapitiii why do you think 🤔 that?
You can definitely install W10. It just won’t have support for QWT. www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows-tools/ (Seamless gui vs windowed HVM).
www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows-vm/
👀 Video time
Ultra private and ultra paranoid is one in the same thing.
Isn't paranoid... I know that fucking aliens are watching me
Whatever you do, don't tell the audience about chip manufactures installing back doors to work around software walls
It looks like impossible to install latest Qubes 4.1.0 to QEMU/KVM. It does strange "freeze out" randomly during install. Sometimes i can not even reach the language selection screen. Sometimes i can pass it through but on the partitioning screen will be freeze the whole installation process. I was trying remove usb mouse and using laptop's built-in mousepad. Also was trying booting from CDROM and trying all available Hard Drive options. VirtIO USB IDE SATA SCSI. Also i was trying with larger sizes: first 40GB then 50GB 55GB and 60GB. Also i was re-downloading the .iso as might be corrupted for first attempt...No luck. I was installing R4.04-x86_64 but it was also not easy. Default partitioning does not work only if i did custom partitioning. But at least could install it. But latest version always failed.. Nested virtualization enabled but IMMOU error can not eliminate....Is that could causing this issue? Or What?
Interesting idea I guess but is it really effective if all of your internet traffic is being routed through the same gateway?
You can use any of the network VM's and set them up individually. They can run on their own VPN's, or through WHONIX for anonymity.
@@Doriandotslash Makes sense.
For a common user like me, that the only concern I have is to avoid the obsessive ex husband that don't understand about computers(only a little about windows) from invading my things or stealing my data, I only need a good Linux with a fine disk cryptography 🤣
But for the ones that work with sensitive data(like industrial models) or other stuff like this, I think it is the most useful!!!!
I would like to make the full switch to Linux. Question is, can Windows 10 Pro be run in the VM within Qubes? If so, then that is a win-win
Are there any plans for a compatible Raspberry Pi version in the near future?
The Raspberry Pi CPU doesn't support virtualization so this currently isn't possible.
My only real complaint about Qubes is the difficulty of building a Qubes Desktop PC.
My research on Qubes OS has told me that you cannot run it on just any computer. The website with the list of motherboards is very complicated. Would you please identify a motherboard and/or other components needed to build such a computer that I can purchase from: Best Buy, Micro Center or New Egg as of April 2021?
Any modern computer should be able to run it. Just check the CPU specs to make sure it can do virtualization. Most can.
@@Doriandotslash
I just built an ASUS high power i9 with virtualization, but this video says that I need a specific type of virtualization. czcams.com/video/hWDvS_Mp6gc/video.html
I don't know where to find such a motherboard.
Intel VT-X with EPT or AMD-V with RVI
Intel VT-d or AMD-Vi (AMD IOMMU)
@@billbundle6009 If you go into your BIOS settings for your motherboard you should see options in there for those features. If they’re not turned on then just turn them on.
how to setup vpn+tor+vpn. and how to go to CZcams through Tor so that Google does not swear that it registered suspicious traffic and did not offer to pass the captcha?
How do you make gaming template (windows 10 with GPU passed through)
Why did they make the ISO file too big for a DVD ?
It can fit on a DL DVD. Most people use USB sticks nowadays though.
usb sticks. besides, what is a ''DVD'', exactly?
so qubes is not a operating system in it self (like windows) but more like a virtual machine operater like virtualbox or VMware??
Sort of, but it's more than that. It allows applications from multiple VM's to exist together on the desktop. It also manages their updates and allows file transfers between them.
do you have a vid on download? not very tech savvy but id love to get this going
How did you get the task bar on the bottom?
It’s just Xfce. You edit the panel, unlock it and then you can move it down.
Thanks for the video, how Tails compare to Qubes. Which one is better in terms of security?
Tails is just a system that runs live, leaving no trace on the PC when you shut it down. I suppose if you were to use ONLY dvm's in Qubes, it would give you the same results. But the benefits of Qubes would be that you can also use it for daily use and save your work, or even do some software development in multiple different distros.
@@Doriandotslash thanks for your reply. Linux is amazing!
@@Doriandotslash As long as you run everything in a VM on Qubes i.e don't install anything onto the base system apart from the stock Qubes.
Then a disposable VM in it of any distro should be as safe as Tails itself.
Since there could be no keyloggers or screenrecorders present on the host system since the host is stock Qubes. Even if some of your VM's are infected with such.
Reminds me of App-V for Windows 7
Cool
Any advice on which processor and MoB to buy ????
you will probsexplain this as i'm only halfway through the video but if I download this will keep my files that are already on my comp?
IF you install Qubes you have 2 options. Wipe your entire hard drive and install, or you can make room on your hard drive by adding another partition and dualboot your current OS with current files and Qubes.
@@Doriandotslash sounds a bit confusing. i'll just back up my files on an external drive and fresh install
@@cottage_pie that’s also a good way. Backups are always the best idea no matter what.
Each Broswer VM should have its own IP address?
Can you eventually tell me why no other application except the "Files" application shows up in any Domain that it created from a fresh usb install? Do you know a workaround? - i cannot even pick something else in the application manager. And im like new to qubes.
The terminal should also show up, does it not? Have you updated the system?
@@Doriandotslash the templates do. But the domains do not!
@@Doriandotslash it is installed, but the domains have no plan
Would this perform reasonably quickly on a dual-core machine?
Or do you really need a quad-core?
I have 16 GB system memory, so CPUs my only real bottleneck.
Well... and graphics; only integrated. But I don't do anything
graphically intensive anyway.
Your CPU will really be a bottleneck here, especially if you run more than one qube at a time.
Depends how old your cpu is. I have been running qubes os for 6 months with i7 6500u without any problems on my thinkpad x260 with 16gb ram
@@FireWolfx100 Well the OP that I replied to said he's running a dual-core, so, 2 cores isn't so great for running virtual machines...
Love the concept but I think I'm not paranoid enough. Also the compatibility list make it hard to install on many hardware.
I think the compatibility list only includes things that have been tried and listed. There's a lot more that is compatible, you just have to try it to see. I've run it on some hardware that isn't listed and it worked just fine.
Really great, informative video, thank you! 🙏🏻 What hardware are you running Qubes on, please?
Thank you! This is running on an MSI laptop with an i7-6700HQ processor and 16GB of RAM.
@@Doriandotslash thanks at last I get it. One fun fact : ed snow used it during blowing those white 💩💩💩 out.
Good to know but can you run other linux Distro's in v-mode?
Yes, but not in the same way that Qubes does.
So can you you run Windows too in a cube VM?
Qubes vs tails which safer
Reminds me of ProxMox , but with a GUI
is it possible to have 2 nvme on a laptop, one for qubes and one for windows?
If a laptop has 2 nvme slots then yes.
Can you show us how to install and run Qubes OS on Windows Hyper-V?
It wouldn’t run properly for my in a virtual machine. It needs to be on hardware.
The problem is, I care about privacy and security but I am way too stupid and uneducated for this. Understood like 3 words of this entire video. No idea where to even start.
Have I read this wrong but is it meant to run on AMD processors ? Is there any problems with Intell processors ?
It can run on either.
@@Doriandotslash thank you for your feedback, in the meantime I bit the bullet and installed it any way. I'm a newby to Linux Mint but so far very impressed .