In Workstation and Gateway every time I successfully change my default password, it changes back to the default “changeme” when I restart the machines.
So far I haven’t found this in Linux help on the web, so I hope this question pertains to Whonix and is not considered a general Linux question.
Which virtualizer are you using?
Do other files persist? Can you try please creating a file in your home folder? And in your root folder? Then reboot and tell if these files still exist?
Apologies I’m not sure what a virtualizer is. I’m using VirtualBox 5.0.1.0. And I’m using Whonix 11.0.0.3.0. I’m not using the newest versions of VirtualBox and Whonix due to installation problems.
As per your instructions, I tested saving a new text file in Workstation on my home and root drives, then I rebooted VirtualBox and Workstation. After booting up, the text files still exist, but my password again changed back to default “changeme”.
You need to sort out that issue first.
Probably best to get the latest version of Whonix first. Import fresh VMs. The issue you are having is really strange. Could be happening from you having made some changes that lead to this strange behavior now or disk corruption.
Either way, unless you want to fix it as per https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Free_Support_Principle, it’s probably easier to reinstall.
Apart from my unusual password issue, is there anything inherently unsafe about using Whonix 11 instead of 13, in terms of web anonymity?
Lastly, what if if I try to upgrade from Whonix 11 to Whonix 13 and something goes wrong along the way, either importing the new machines into VirtualBox, or when trying to run Whonix for the first time. Could that cause any problems with my current running of Whonix 11? If that’s the case, I’m not sure if I want to risk messing up my current Whonix 11 setup. No one else has access to my PC, which has full disk encryption. So I’m not greatly concerned about the Whonix password issue.
No one is thinking about that version anymore. So much stuff happening, I couldn’t give you a changelog without looking it up.
It shouldn’t mess up existing (Whonix) VMs.
And you can make a backup. Specifically simple using VirtualBox ova export.