How can I manually create something like Whonix on LXD?

While the architecture of Whonix is great, I don’t like debian on Whonix Workstation.

I want Gentoo. I also want to try implementing Whonix on LXD because it is fast to iterate on LXD.

How can I create a Whonix-like environment on LXD?

Hi ForzenCat

You can use other operating systems with Whonix

Gentoo and LXD is unsupported.

However this can be sorted out as per https://whonix.org/wiki/Support#Free_Support_Principle

I would start by searching the Whonix forum (upper right hand corner of your screen). There is information there (Gentoo) that may be very helpful.

https://forums.whonix.org/search?q=Gentoo

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Of course you can go ahead and do whatever you like with our code as long as you abide by the license. However in the scheme of things containers make very poor isolation mechanisms and so I don’t think we can officially endorse them. Hardware virtualization is everywhere by now.

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Is Gentoo unsupported on qemu and virtualbox, too?

I want both Whonix Gateway and Whonix Workstation to run on Gentoo.

I was hoping that there were recipes for creating Whonix Gateway and Whonix Workstation from scratch.

Unsupported mean no instructions are available. You will have to install/test - figure it out how to build for yourself (all hypervisors)

If you followed all of the link that I posted you will see old documentation on Gentoo/Whonix. However they were abandoned.

https://whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Gentoo

https://whonix.org/wiki/HardenedGentooTG

Whonix 13 (current stable) build Docs:

https://whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Build_Documentation/13_full

Whonix 14 (soon to be released) build Docs:

https://whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Build_Documentation/14_full

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Are there any distro-independent instructions for building Whonix-Gateway and Whonix-Workstation?
Because I know how to navigate Gentoo, I don’t need gentoo-specific instructions.

No.

Any distros-specific recipes that are easy to follow or up to date?

Post How can I manually create something like Whonix on LXD? - #5 by 0brand links to up to date Whonix 13 / 14 build instructions.

Ok, I’ll try that.

Are you telling me that I should reverse-engineer a recipe from Whonix build code if I want to manually create a Whonix-like environment?

Years ago e-mailed Elon Musk asked “How can I make my own Tesla but for
motorbikes?” :wink:

Why do you except the Whonix project distro specific or even distro
agnostic instructions?

You could check the history of Whonix.

The earlier version of TorBOX wiki page(s) was a distro specific recipe
(documentation) for manual builds. Followed by years of research and
development it’s not doable to project recipes as well as source code
and build scripts at the same time.

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Then, it would be better to treat Whonix like a black box.
How can I continually update Whonix?
Do Whonix-specific configurations come in the form of deb packages to facilitate rolling upgrades like gentoo or arch linux?

FrozenCat:

Then, it would be better to treat Whonix like a black box.

A black box with all source code available, though.

By that standard, you’d have to treat Debian or any distribution like a black box too. They may provide you with source code and build scripts, but I am pretty sure there is no recipe for “how to make my own Debian”.

Look at debootstrap which is used to bootstrap Debian. Or the Gentoo equivalent. It’s quite complex. It’s possible to figure out how it’s done by reading the source code but there is no recipe how it’s done.

At some level of complexity you need to let go and let a Libre Software tool do it. debootstrap (or equivalent) is a tool. Whonix build script is a tool. Once tools exists, usually no one can be bothered to maintain at the same time recipes on how to manually do it.

How can I continually update Whonix?

Upgrade from repository or source code.

Do Whonix-specific configurations come in the form of deb packages to facilitate rolling upgrades like gentoo or arch linux?

Everything is packages in deb packages.