Qubes-OS transfer files from and to HVM

Question

I can't find in the documentation how to transfer data from and to the HVM in Qubes-OS. When a normal AppVM is created, it has the Qubes Tools installed so easy copy and paste, and transferring files is possible. However, a HVM seems completely locked down.

Any idea's?

Answer 1

Yes, you can copy files between HVM⟺HVM & HVM⟺AppVM. I didn't find any way in Qubes Documentation to do that. I guess developers of Qubes didn't give this feature still. But, I found way to do this.

First time what you have to do:

1. Create a virtual disk image.
2. Attach it to any VM(except dom0).
3. Identify the disk image using fdisk.
4. Create partition(s).
5. Create filesystem in that partition.
6. Detach from that VM

Every time what you have to do:

1. Attach it to target VM(HVM or AppVM).
2. Identify the disk image using fdisk.
3. Mount that volume.
4. Copy or Move whatever you want.
5. Unmount that volume.
6. Detach from that VM.
7. Do same to another VM(HVM or AppVM) for Paste.

Commands to do:

Creating virtual disk image (in dom0 Terminal):

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/anaconda/storage.img bs=1M seek=20480 count=0

Replace 'anaconda' by your username; the number after seek is disk size in MB.

Attaching disk image to a VM (in dom0 Terminal): For Qubes-3.2

qvm-block -A VMname dom0:/home/anaconda/storage.img

For Qubes-4.0

sudo losetup -f --show /home/anaconda/storage.img


qvm-block attach VMname dom0:loop21

Identifying disk image (in VM Terminal):

sudo fdisk -l

Creating partition (in VM Terminal):

sudo fdisk /dev/xvdi

Creating filesystem in partition (in VM Terminal):

sudo mkfs.fat /dev/xvdi1

Mounting volume (in VM Terminal):

sudo mkdir /mnt/removable

sudo mount /dev/xvdi1 /mnt/removable

Unmounting volume (in VM Terminal):

sudo umount /dev/xvdi1

Detaching disk image from VM (in dom0 Terminal):

qvm-block

qvm-block -d dom0:loop21

For Qubes-4.0 replace '-d' by 'detach'.

For video tutorial go to this link https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qE06DWWf97E