qusal

Salt Formulas for Qubes OS.

Warning

Warning: Not ready for production, development only. Breaking changes can and will be introduced in the meantime. You've been warned.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Installation
  • Prerequisites
  • DomU Installation
  • Dom0 Installation
• Update
  • DomU Update
  • Dom0 Update with Git
  • Dom0 Update by literally copying the git repository
• Usage
• Contribute
• Donate
• Support
  • Free Support
  • Paid Support
• Contact
• Credits
• Legal

Description

Qusal is a Free and Open Source security-focused project that provides SaltStack Formulas for Qubes OS users to complete various daily tasks, such as web browsing, video-calls, remote administration, coding, network tunnels and much more, which are easy to install and maintains low attack surface.

We not only provide a single solution for each project, but also provides alternative when they differ, such as for networking, you could use a VPN, DNS Sink-hole, Mirage Unikernel or the standard Qubes Firewall for managing the network chain and the connections the clients connected to these NetVMs are allowed to make.

Here are some of the Global Preferences we can manage:

• clockvm: disp-sys-net, sys-net
• default_dispvm: dvm-reader
• default_netvm: sys-pihole, sys-firewall or disp-sys-firewall
• management_dispvm: dvm-mgmt
• updatevm: sys-pihole, sys-firewall or disp-sys-firewall
• default_audiovm: disp-sys-audio

If you want to learn more about how we make decisions, take a look at our design document.

Installation

Prerequisites

You current setup needs to fulfill the following requisites:

• Qubes OS R4.2
• Internet connection

DomU Installation

1. Install git in the qube, if it is an AppVM, install it it's the TemplateVM and restart the AppVM.

2. Clone this repository:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ben-grande/qusal.git

If you made a fork, fork the submodule(s) before clone and use your remote repository instead, the submodules will also be from your fork.

Dom0 Installation

Before copying anything to Dom0, read Qubes OS warning about consequences of this procedure.

1. Copy the repository $file from the DomU $qube to Dom0:

qube="CHANGEME" # qube name where you downloaded the repository
file="CHANGEME" # path to the repository in the qube
qvm-run --pass-io --localcmd="UPDATES_MAX_FILES=10000
  /usr/libexec/qubes/qfile-dom0-unpacker user
  ~/QubesIncoming/${qube}/qusal" \
  "${qube}" /usr/lib/qubes/qfile-agent "${file}"

2. Acquire the maintainer signing key by other means and copy it to Dom0.

3. Verify the commit or tag signature and expect a good signature, be surprised otherwise:

git verify-commit HEAD

4. Copy the project to the Salt directories:

~/QubesIncoming/"${qube}"/qusal/scripts/setup.sh

Update

To update, you can copy the repository again to dom0 as instructed in the installation section above or you can use easier methods demonstrated below.

DomU Update

Update the repository state in your trusted DomU:

git -C ~/src/qusal fetch --recurse-submodules

Dom0 Update with Git

This method is more secure than literally copying the whole directory of the repository to dom0 but the setup is more involved. Requires some familiary with the sys-git formula.

0. Install the sys-git formula and push the repository to the git server.

1. Install git on Dom0, allow the Qrexec protocol to work in submodules and clone the repository to ~/src/qusal (only has to be run once):

mkdir -p ~/src
sudo qubesctl state.apply sys-git.install-client
git clone --recurse-submodules qrexec://@default/qusal.git ~/src/qusal

2. Fetch from the app qube and place the files in the salt tree (git merge and pull will verify the HEAD signature automatically)

git -C ~/src/qusal fetch --recurse-submodules
~/src/qusal/scripts/setup.sh

Dom0 Update by literally copying the git repository

This method is similar to the installation method, but easier to type. This method is less secure than Git over Qrexec because it copies the whole repository, including the .git directory which holds files that are not tracked by git. It would be easier to distrust the downloader qube if the project had a signed archive.

1. Install the helpers scripts and git on Dom0 (only has to be run once):

sudo qubesctl state.apply dom0.install-helpers
sudo qubes-dom0-update git

2. Copy the repository $file from the DomU $qube to Dom0:

qube="CHANGEME" # qube name where you downloaded the repository
file="CHANGEME" # path to the repository in the qube
rm -rf ~/QubesIncoming/"${qube}"/qusal
UPDATES_MAX_FILES=10000 qvm-copy-to-dom0 "${qube}" "${file}"

3. Verify the commit or tag signature and expect a good signature, be surprised otherwise:

git verify-commit HEAD

4. Copy the project to the Salt directories:

~/QubesIncoming/"${qube}"/qusal/scripts/setup.sh

Usage

Qusal is now installed. Please read the README.md of each project in the salt directory for further information on how to install the desired package. If you are unsure how to start, get some ideas from our bootstrap guide.

The intended behavior is to enforce the state of qubes and their services. If you modify the qubes and their services and apply the state again, conflicting configurations will be overwritten. To enforce your state, write a SaltFile to specify the desired state and call it after the ones provided by this project.

If you want to edit the access control of any service, you should always use the Qrexec policy at /etc/qubes/policy.d/30-user.policy, as this file will take precedence over the packaged policies.

Please note that when you allow more Qrexec calls than the default shipped by Qubes OS, you are increasing the attack surface of the target, normally to a valuable qube that can hold secrets or pristine data. A compromise of the client qube can extend to the server, therefore configure the installation according to your threat model.

Contribute

There are several ways to contribute to this project. Spread the word, help on user support, review opened issues, fix typos, implement new features, donations.

Please take a look at our contribution guidelines before contributing code or to the documentation, it holds important information on how the project is structured, why some design decisions were made and what can be improved.

Donate

This project can only survive through donations. If you like what we have done, please consider donating. Contact us for donation address.

This project depends on Qubes OS, consider donating to upstream.

Support

Free Support

Free support will be provided on a best effort basis. If you want something, open an issue and patiently wait for a reply, the project is best developed in the open so anyone can search for past issues.

Paid Support

Paid consultation services can be provided. Request a quote from us.

Contact

You must not contact for free support.

• E-mail

Credits

I stand on the shoulders of giants. This would not be possible without people contributing to Qubes OS SaltStack formulas. Honorable mention(s): unman.

Legal

This project is REUSE-compliant. It is difficult to list all licenses and copyrights and keep them up-to-date here.

The easiest way to get the copyright and license of the project with the reuse tool:

reuse spdx

You can also check these information manually by looking in the file header, a companion .license file or in .reuse/dep5.

All licenses are present in the LICENSES directory.

Note that submodules have their own licenses and copyrights statements, please check each one individually using the same methods described above for a full statement.