How to Reinstall a TemplateVM

If you suspect your TemplateVM is broken, misconfigured, or compromised, or if you wish to do a clean reinstall in order to upgrade to a new version, you can reinstall any TemplateVM from the Qubes repository. In what follows, the phrase "target TemplateVM" refers to whichever TemplateVM you want to reinsatll. If you want to reinstall more than one TemplateVM, repeat these instructions for each one.

(Optional) Clone the existing target TemplateVM.

This can be a good idea if you've customized the existing template and want to keep your customizations. On the other hand, if you suspect that this template is broken, misconfigured, or compromised, you may want to remove it without cloning it.

Create a temporary dummy template:

 mkdir /var/lib/qubes/vm-templates/dummy
 touch /var/lib/qubes/vm-templates/dummy/{root.img,private.img}
 qvm-add-template dummy

Temporarily change all VMs based on the target TemplateVM to the new dummy template, or remove them.

This can be a good idea if you have user data in these VMs that you want to keep. On the other hand, if you suspect that these VMs (or the templates on which they are based) are broken, misconfigured, or compromised, you may want to remove them instead. You can do this in Qubes Manager by right-clicking on the VM and clicking Remove VM, or you can use the command qvm-remove <vm-name> in dom0.

Using a dummy template as a temporary template is preferable to using another real TemplateVM because you can't accidentally boot any VMs from the dummy template. (There is no OS in the dummy template, so the boot will fail.)

Uninstall the target TemplateVM from dom0:

 $ sudo yum remove <template-package-name>

For example, to uninstall the whonix-gw template:

 $ sudo yum remove qubes-template-whonix-gw

Reinstall the target TemplateVM in dom0:

 $ sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=<optional-additional-repo> \
   <template-package-name>

For example, to install the whonix-gw template:

 $ sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-templates-community \
   qubes-template-whonix-gw

If you temporarily changed all VMs based on the target TemplateVM to the dummy template in step 3, change them back to the new target TemplateVM now. If you instead removed all VMs based on the old target TemplateVM, you can recreate your desired VMs from the newly reinstalled target TemplateVM now.

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How to Reinstall a TemplateVM

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