Whonix CLI KVM Images

I’m currently using two distributions of Whonix (xfce and cli) for different purposes. I prefer using KVM but I could only locate CLI images for VirtualBox in the download section of the Whonix website. Is there a CLI image for KVM? If not, any plan to release in the future?

In the next point release, Whonix will support cli console so you can send commands directly from a host terminal to the VM’s. There is no need to interact with the guest GUI and you can even reduce RAM enough to prevent the GUI from loading if you need to.

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Build from source code should [1] also be possible.

[1] I usually don’t test --target libvirt, --flavor whonix-gateway-cli / --flavor whonix-workstation-cli builds.

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I’m not sure what you mean by that but it sounds like my use case for Whonix CLI. I use multiple ssh hops to send commands (and rsync over ssh) from a host workstation to a VPS with Whonix in between. That’s why I don’t need a graphical environment for this.

Essentially this: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/KVM#Command_Line_Interface_.28CLI.29

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The RAM adjusted startup feature is nice and I think good enough for now. However, I would rather use an image without xfce if available. I might try a custom build if time permits and report back. Thanks for the insights!

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Is there a reason (security argument?) you dislike the presence of xfce packages on the system even if they are not actively running?

No security concerns that I know of.

Typically with Linux, installing a full DM to disable it afterwards can be confusing as some default configurations (e.g. power mgmt) relate to services that depend on the DM, and have to be configured elsewhere for the tty. I also don’t like disabling the desktop based on RAM threshold only, as I may want to add more RAM to run a Monero daemon for example.

If the images came configured for the tty and included an explicit switch to disable the DM, then I would have not problem with it including XFCE.

jpearson via Whonix Forum:

I also don’t like disabling the desktop based on RAM threshold only, as I may want to add more RAM to run a Monero daemon for example.

This is the linux ecosystem. Obviously you can prevent starting a a GUI
while having a ton of RAM anyhow. Untested but should work:

sudo systemctl mask lightdm
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