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diff --git a/suckless/virtual.md b/suckless/virtual.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51c01c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/suckless/virtual.md @@ -0,0 +1,101 @@ +[[!meta title="Virtualized GUI environments"]] + +Can't or don't want to use [Qubes OS](https://www.qubes-os.org/)? Here comes a straightforward sollution +that, while not offering the same level of security, is practical enough to be implemented in the confort +of your current FOSS OS! + +A picture +--------- + +Could you spot the difference between the Tor Browser running in the host for the one inside the virtual machine? That's what we want to achieve! + + + +First things first +------------------ + +What you can do: + +1. Create a virtual machine image of the operating system of your choice like [this example](https://padrao.fluxo.info/boxes/). +2. Setup basic X11 environment with automatic login and startup programs. +3. Configure your hypervisor to hide icons and additional decorations around the virtual machine. +4. Setup key bindings on your window manager to start/resume and stop/suspend the virtual machine. + +Debian desktop +-------------- + +When using a debian virtual machine as a virtual desktop, consider the following: + + apt-get install lightdm ratpoison + +Make sure to configure `/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf` with something like + + autologin-user=vagrant + autologin-user-timeout=0 + +If using VirtualBox, you might also want to try [virtualbox-guest-x11](https://packages.debian.org/stable/virtualbox-guest-x11). + +Features +-------- + +* Good security through isolation. +* Improved start/stop of your application by using virtual machine suspend/resume. +* Minor performance penalties while running the virtual machine. + +Limitations +----------- + +* Memory and disk consumption. +* Clipboard might still be available to the virtual environment, see [this discussion](http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com.br/2011/04/linux-security-circus-on-gui-isolation.html). + +Future +------ + +* This should be better documented! +* Automated expendable snapshots for one-time-use virtual machines. +* Automated recipes (puppet/ansible). +* Vagrant integration for fast provisioning of golden images. +* Alternatives to the VirtualBox hypervisor. + +References +---------- + +Applications: + +* [kvmx script](https://kvmx.fluxo.info). +* [vbox script](https://git.fluxo.info/vbox). +* [plymouth - Debian Wiki](https://wiki.debian.org/plymouth). +* [SPICE Project](http://www.spice-space.org/). + +Other implementations: + +* [Marco Carnut: Ambiente "Auto-Limpante" via Virtualização Ultra-Leve Descartável - Tempest Blog](http://blog.tempest.com.br/marco-carnut/ambiente-auto-limpante-via-virtualizacao-ultra-leve-descartavel.html). +* [Subgraph OS and Mail](https://subgraph.com/sgos/index.en.html). + +Tips: + +* If using Firefox, try to disable hardware graphics acceleration as it might impact performance and produce graphics artifacts. This behavior was seem on VMs running with qemu-kvm with SPICE. + +Spice and KVM: + +* http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/SPICE +* https://www.spice-space.org/spice-user-manual.html +* https://kuther.net/content/convert-virtualbox-kvmqemu +* http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-change-display-resolution-settings-using-xrandr.html +* https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1020393 +* https://people.freedesktop.org/~teuf/spice-doc/html/ch03.html +* http://askubuntu.com/questions/107228/how-to-resize-virtual-machine-disk#481887 +* http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/9psetup +* https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/8080/shared-folder-with-qemu-kvm/ + +Mounting guest images: + +* [Mounting raw and qcow2 VM disk images](https://alexeytorkhov.blogspot.com.br/2009/09/mounting-raw-and-qcow2-vm-disk-images.html) using `losetup` or `qemu-nbd`. +* [guestmount](http://libguestfs.org/guestmount.1.html) from [libguestfs, a library for accessing and modifying VM disk images](http://libguestfs.org/). + +Image optimization: + +* [Tip: Making a disk image sparse | Richard WM Jones](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/tip-making-a-disk-image-sparse/). +* [How to convert a non-sparse image to a sparse image – Patrick's Blog(2)](https://blog.laimbock.com/2013/10/31/how-to-convert-a-non-sparse-image-to-sparse/). + + ionice -c 3 nice -n 19 virt-sparsify --tmp /tmp --convert qcow2 --compress box.img box.new && mv box.new box.img |