Using Whonix-Workstation as a DisposableVM (DispVM)

Qubes-Whonix
12

If you can launch a Whonix-Workstation dispVM terminal, you can also launch Tor Browser by using torbrowser command. Obviously, closing Tor Browser won’t destroy the dispVM - you’ll need to exit from Konsole to do that.

Ha! I just got done complaining about that…

I can’t try myself as I’m still on 3.1. I guess I’ll make the leap with Whonix 14. So keep in mind that I’m flying blind as I type the steps below and also this might not work at all.

  • First, make sure xfdesktop is installed. dnf list installed xfdesktop

  • You need to make .desktop files for every dispVM shortcut you want to add to your menus. (Manual: Desktop Entry Specification) They need to be put in ~/.local/share/applications/

  • For example: nano ~/.local/share/applications/dvm-torbrowser.desktop
    Add:

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=Tor Browser
    Comment=Launch Tor Browser in Disposable VM
    Type=Application
    Terminal=false
    Exec=sh -c ‘echo torbrowser | /usr/lib/qubes/qfile-daemon-dvm qubes.VMShell dom0 DEFAULT red’

You can play around with Icon=, Category=

  • To add the .desktop files to your menu, you need to: nano ~/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu

  • Scroll down until you see:

    <Menu> <Name>DispVM-blah-blah</Name>

then in the <Include> section add:
<Filename>dvm-torbrowser.desktop</Filename>

That might work… maybe. (Shouldn’t need reboot.)

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