Whonix build script
Details
Mar 21 2020
We actually ended up using Whonix KVM and placing images to:
Jun 27 2019
Apr 23 2019
Apr 6 2019
Apr 4 2019
Please kindly consider jointing the related discussion improving compression of Whonix image downloads:
https://forums.whonix.org/t/improving-compression-of-whonix-image-downloads/7086
Feb 14 2019
To build a package with qubes-builder, you need to add Makefile.builder file with just one line: DEBIAN_BUILD_DIRS := debian. This will tell qubes-builder that given repository contains Debian package.
Alternatively, if that would be too much of a problem, it should be easy to add an option that do auto detection (probably just looks for debian directory).
Jan 20 2019
Dec 9 2018
Dec 7 2018
Dec 3 2018
There's been research showing that trying to hide CPU information in a virtualizer is futile.
Nov 28 2018
Aug 8 2018
Jul 17 2018
I opened a small pull request for grub-live. Also the alternative version ro-mode-init lives at https://github.com/Algernon-01/ro-mode-init
Jun 30 2018
Apr 30 2018
virt-sparsify solution dropped because needs booting the image with qemu-system (not clean, to much unknown consequences, see attached ouptut).
Apr 26 2018
Mar 7 2018
Jan 12 2018
It will still depend on the user looking out for this indicator. Easiest is probably something like notify-send with a high duration time so a user will see it and click it away. Could be made part of whonixcheck or maybe use whonixcheck itself instead.
Jan 9 2018
What would be useful is some sort of indication on the desktop that system is running in live mode vs persistent mode.
Jan 7 2018
Merged.
Jan 6 2018
ip=frommedia needs to be added to the kernel command line otherwise the network interfaces won't be configured in live mode. I uploaded the changes to the repo.
Dec 21 2017
Dec 17 2017
Sure, I'll add instructions for the installation and some general remarks around live mode to the Whonix live wiki entry.
Dec 15 2017
Added to https://github.com/Whonix/Whonix/tree/master/packages, build, and uploaded to Whonix (14) developers repository.
Dec 12 2017
Test wise installed the package.
Dec 11 2017
Hmm, odd it did not work for you. I tested it with the whonix build script and also the upgrade from 13 to 14 with the local packages repo. Both produced the correct GRUB menu with all options.
What did you do, just copying 11_linux to /etc/grub.d/ and running update-grub I guess?
Fixed.
Perfect!
Dec 10 2017
Made the file somewhat smaller:
https://github.com/Algernon-01/grub-live/commit/c8f8a24dbac305cdbbff0d2d53d14b699cc4a2b4
Dec 9 2017
/etc/grub.d/11_linux_live is still a lot code duplication.
Should boot=live union=overlay plainroot be injected at line https://github.com/adrelanos/grub-live/blob/master/etc/grub.d/11_linux_live#L353 as well?
Dec 8 2017
Changes for initramfs-tools based live system:
Dec 4 2017
Most of them don't seem to interact with the normal boot process, right?
Algernon (Algernon):> Packages would be: live-boot, live-config-systemd,
live-config-initramfs-tools, live-tools.
Dec 3 2017
Packages would be: live-boot, live-config-systemd, live-config-initramfs-tools, live-tools.
I'm wondering if then there really needs to be an extra package for the other files. Currently only the apparmor config for the new home and alias as well as the grub config file would be in there. I think the apparmor related edits could also be merged with the files in the apparmor-profile-anondist. There are some packages for grub but they all have a quite specific name. So either make a dedicated grub-live package or make the live patch package as before or merge the grub config file somewhere else.
Dec 2 2017
Dec 1 2017
As stated here: https://forums.whonix.org/t/replacing-initramfs-tools-with-dracut-for-live-systems/4487
there is still option 5 if you feel uncomfortable with dracut in general.
A "normal" live system with overlayfs should be possible without patches. We would mostly need to pull in some debian live packages.
Copying the whole filesystem to RAM would not work without patches. Of course there is no possibility to use device mapper though maybe most end users won't care about that.
Some minor edits to the grub config file and apparmor stuff would be required.
Nov 30 2017
For reference: