KVM Whonix 14 Workstation Startup Errors

[glass]

I grabbed the 14.0.0.7.4-libvirt.xz files for the gateway and the workstation.

(1.) When I start the Gateway VM it starts fine.

(2.) But when I start the Workstation VM from the Virtual Machine Manager, I get a pop-up error in the VM saying VirtualBox kernel not running. Exiting. Sometimes that pop-up error is repeated. Then I get a screen asking me to login. Sometimes when I type in my password, it just comes back to that same screen repeatedly.

(3.) Normally though, once I type in my password, both the Gateway and the Workstation VM’s along with the Virtual Machine Manager all disappear. When I go to open the Virtual Machine Manager again, it shows both VM’s as running. When I open each VM window, they are running. However, in the Workstation VM, there is a KDESudo warning box stating: No command arguments supplied! Usage: kdesudo [ -u ] KdeSudo will now exit. Once I press OK, that box closes. Not sure why that window is opening as I made no use of kdesudo.

Finally, I am experiencing intermittent high cpu load with Whonix 14. I also notice that scrolling in Tor Browser is slow and even stops at times.

I am running on a 64-bit Debian Stretch host system. I have KVM and all associated files up to date on this system. I have also applied sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade to both VM’s to get them up to date. Any insights into these issues will be appreciated.

[Patrick]

glass:

Usage: kdesudo [ -u ] KdeSudo will now exit. Once I press OK, that box closes. Not sure why that window is opening as I made no use of kdesudo.

Sounds like that is from an old deprecated testers-only version. Which
version did you download from where?

[Algernon]

Did you change the graphics settings like the resolution? Imho the errors related to the login screen could be related to this. I also run in these occasionally though they are not 100% reproducible. imho $something is segfaulting and sometimes taking the whole VM + virt-manager with it but I did not look any further. Could you try to use another video driver like cirrus and see if the errors still occur? To help against slow tbb you could try to increase the number of cpu cores or memory.

[glass]

Sounds like that is from an old deprecated testers-only version. Which
version did you download from where?

At the time that I downloaded it, it was a testers only version for KVM. But as far as I can tell, that version, 14.0.0.7.4, became the released version of Whonix 14 for KVM. Or was an updated 14.0.0.7.4 version released for KVM? I would have downloaded it at the time from the link provided in the forum announcement.

Also thought that I would point out that when I tried to build Whonix 14 from git sources, I get an error. It seems that in the section:

1100-prepare-build-machine on line 407 there is a command that has hard coded the username value:

pushd “/var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow/home/user/genmkfile”

I get an error because I am not building the qcow2 file under the username user. When I try to change that value to my username, it then gives me an error that I am using an altered git file. Is there a reason this was hard coded as username user? As an example, say I am building under username userX, I find the genmkfile in /var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow/home/userX directory on my system for the build.

My hope is to be able to build the qcow files from git sources. I did that with Whonix 13 successfully.

To help against slow tbb you could try to increase the number of cpu cores or memory.

Thanks for your recommendations.

[Algernon]

A workaround for the git error is using “–allow-untagged true” and “–allow-uncomitted true” as build options.

[Patrick]

We don’t make two releases giving them the same version number so should be ok.

pushd “/var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow/home/ user /genmkfile”

Fixed in git master.