qubes-doc/managing-os/templates/fedora-minimal.md

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Fedora - minimal

The template only weighs about 600 MB compressed (2 GB on disk) and has only the most vital packages installed, including a minimal X and xterm installation. The minimal template, however, can be easily extended to fit your requirements. The sections below contain the instructions on duplicating the template and provide some examples for commonly desired use cases.

Installation

The Fedora minimal template can be installed with the following command:

[user@dom0 ~]$ sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-fedora-27-minimal

The download may take a while depending on your connection speed.

Duplication and first steps

It is highly recommended to clone the original template, and make any changes in the clone instead of the original template. The following command clones the template. Replace your-new-clone with your desired name.

[user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-clone fedora-27-minimal your-new-clone

You must start the template in order to customize it.

Customization

Customizing the template for specific use cases normally only requires installing additional packages. The following table provides an overview of which packages are needed for which purpose.

As expected, the required packages are to be installed in the running template with the following command. Replace "packages` with a space-delimited list of packages to be installed.

[user@your-new-clone ~]$ sudo dnf install packages

Use case	Description	Required steps
Standard utilities	If you need the commonly used utilities	Install the following packages: pciutils vim-minimal less psmisc gnome-keyring
FirewallVM	You can use the minimal template as a FirewallVM, such as the basis template for sys-firewall	No extra packages are needed for the template to work as a firewall.
NetVM	You can use this template as the basis for a NetVM such as sys-net	Install the following packages: NetworkManager-wifi wireless-tools dejavu-sans-fonts notification-daemon.
NetVM (extra firmware)	If your network devices need extra packages for the template to work as a network VM	Use the lspci command to identify the devices, then run dnf search firmware (replace firmware with the appropriate device identifier) to find the needed packages and then install them.
Network utilities	If you need utilities for debugging and analyzing network connections	Install the following packages: tcpdump telnet nmap nmap-ncat
USB	If you want USB input forwarding to use this template as the basis for a USB qube such as sys-usb	Install qubes-input-proxy-sender
VPN	You can use this template as basis for a VPN qube	Use the dnf search "NetworkManager VPN plugin" command to look up the VPN packages you need, based on the VPN technology you'll be using, and install them. Some GNOME related packages may be needed as well. After creation of a machine based on this template, follow the VPN howto to configure it.
DVM Template	If you want to use this VM as a DVM Template	Install perl-Encode

A comprehensive guide to customizing the minimal template is available here

Qubes 4.0

In Qubes R4.0 the minimal template is not configured for passwordless root. To update or install packages to it, from a dom0 terminal window:

[user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-run -u root fedora-27-minimal xterm

to open a root terminal in the template, from which you can use dnf without sudo. You will have to do this every time if you choose not to enable passwordless root.

If you want the usual qubes sudo dnf ... commands, open the root terminal just this once using the above command, and in the root xterm window enter

bash-4.4# dnf install qubes-core-agent-passwordless-root polkit

Optionally check this worked: from the gui open the minimal template's xterm and give the command

[user@fed-min-clone ~]$ sudo -l

which should give you output that includes the NOPASSWD keyword.

In Qubes 4.0, additional packages from the qubes-core-agent suite may be needed to make the customized minimal template work properly. These packages are:

• qubes-core-agent-qrexec: Qubes qrexec agent. Installed by default.
• qubes-core-agent-systemd: Qubes unit files for SystemD init style. Installed by default.
• qubes-core-agent-passwordless-root, polkit: By default the 'fedora-27-minimal' template doesn't have passwordless root. These two packages enable this feature. (Note from R4.0 a design choice was made that passwordless should be optional, so is left out of the minimal templates)
• qubes-core-agent-nautilus: This package provides integration with the Nautilus file manager (without it things like "copy to VM/open in disposable VM" will not be shown in Nautilus).
• qubes-core-agent-sysvinit: Qubes unit files for SysV init style or upstart.
• qubes-core-agent-networking: Networking support. Required for general network access and particularly if the template is to be used for a sys-net or sys-firewall VM.
• qubes-core-agent-network-manager: Integration for NetworkManager. Useful if the template is to be used for a sys-net VM.
• network-manager-applet: Useful (together with dejavu-sans-fonts and notification-daemon) to have a system tray icon if the template is to be used for a sys-net VM.
• qubes-core-agent-dom0-updates: Script required to handle dom0 updates. Any template which the VM responsible for 'dom0' updates (e.g. sys-firewall) is based on must contain this package.
• qubes-usb-proxy: Required if the template is to be used for a USB qube (sys-usb) or for any destination qube to which USB devices are to be attached (e.g sys-net if using USB network adapter).
• pulseaudio-qubes: Needed to have audio on the template VM.

Logging

The rsyslog logging service is not installed by default, as all logging is instead being handled by the systemd journal. Users requiring the rsyslog service should install it manually.

To access the journald log, use the journalctl command.