qvm-features – manage domain’s features

Synopsis

qvm-features [-h] [–verbose] [–quiet] VMNAME [FEATURE [VALUE]]

Options

--help, -h

show this help message and exit

--verbose, -v

increase verbosity

--quiet, -q

decrease verbosity

--unset, --default, --delete, -D

Unset the feature.

Description

This command is used to manually manage the features of the domain. The features are key-value pairs with both key and value being strings. They are used by extensions to store information about the domain and make policy decisions based on them. For example, they may indicate that some specific software package was installed inside the template and the domains based on it have some specific capability.

Warning

The features are normally managed by the extensions themselves and you should not change them directly. Strange things might happen otherwise.

Some extensions interpret the values as boolean. In this case, the empty string means False and non-empty string (commonly '1') means True. An absence of the feature means “default”, which is extension-dependent. In most cases the default value for feature is retrieved from a qube template.

List of known features

Warning

This list of features may be incomplete, because extensions are free to use any values, without registering them anywhere.

gui

Qube has gui-agent installed. Setting this feature to True enables GUI based on a gui-agent installed inside the VM. See also gui-emulated feature.

If neither gui nor gui-emulated is set, emulated VGA is used (if applicable for given VM virtualization mode).

gui-emulated

Qube provides GUI through emulated VGA. Setting this feature to True enables emulated VGA output. Note that when gui-agent connects to actual VM, emulated VGA output is closed (unless debug property is set to True). It’s possible to open emulated VGA output for a running qube, regardless of this feature, using qvm-start-daemon –force-stubdomain QUBE_NAME command.

This feature is applicable only when qube’s virt_mode is set to hvm. See also gui feature.

If neither gui nor gui-emulated is set, emulated VGA is used (if applicable for given VM virtualization mode).

gui-*, gui-default-*

GUI daemon configuration. See /etc/qubes/guid.conf for a list of supported options.

To change a given GUI option for a specific qube, set the gui-{option} feature (with underscores replaced with dashes). For example, to enable allow_utf8_titles for a qube, set gui-allow-utf8-titles to True.

To change a given GUI option globally, set the gui-default-{option} feature on the GuiVM for that qube.

input-dom0-proxy

When set to True, Qubes input proxy sender services will start for every non-virtual input devices available in dom0 on domain start.

qrexec

Qube has qrexec agent installed - i.e. it is possible to request staring a command/service in there.

Default: assume qrexec not installed (do not wait for it while starting the qube)

rpc-clipboard

Use qubes.ClipboardCopy and qubes.ClipboardPaste qubes RPC services to fetch/send clipboard content from/to this qube, instead of using GUI protocol. This is supported (and required) by Qubes Windows Tools.

Default: use GUI protocol for clipboard operations

no-monitor-layout

When set to True, monitor layout is not sent to this qube. That is avoid calling qubes.SetMonitorLayout in this qube.

Default: send monitor layout

internal

Internal qubes (with this feature set to True) are not included in the menu, not available in GUI tools (e.g in Global Settings as a default net qube) and generally hidden from normal usage. It is not recommended to set this feature manually.

Default: not internal VM

appmenus-legacy

Generate legacy menu entries, using qubes-desktop-run command inside a VM, instead of qubes.StartApp qrexec service. This is used for qubes imported from previous Qubes version.

Default: new style menu entries, using qubes.StartApp service

appmenus-dispvm

Generate menu entries for starting applications in Disposable VM based on given AppVM, instead of this AppVM directly.

Default: create menu entries for AppVM itself

qubes-firewall

Setting this to True means that qube support enforcing firewall rules set with qvm-firewall command.

Default: assume qubes-firewall not enforced

net.fake-ip

Hide the real IP of the qube from it, and configure it with value set to this feature. Note that you can assign the same net.fake-ip address to multiple qubes and it shouldn’t cause any troubles (unless you want to two such qubes communicate with each other). This feature does not affect address used in firewall rules, routing tables etc.

Default: do not hide IP (qube’s ip property) from the qube

net.fake-gateway

Hide the real gateway of the qube from it, and configure it with value set to this feature.

Default: do not hide geteway (qube’s gateway property) from the qube

net.fake-netmask

Hide the real netmask of the qube from it, and configure it with value set to this feature.

Default: do not hide netmask (qube’s netmask property) from the qube

updates-available

There are updates available. In most cases it is useful to (only) read this feature to check if qube needs to be updated.

Default/no value: no updates available

video-model

Choose video card modes emulated by QEMU for this qube. For available values see libvirt documentation about <video><model type=…> element: https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsVideo Some systems (Windows) works better with ‘cirrus’ model set here. Setting this feature to none disables emulated video card.

Default: vga

pci-e820-host

Enable e820_host option in Xen domU config if qube has any PCI device assigned. This is option is needed for some PCI device drivers to correctly allocate memory. Refer to Xen documentation for details.

Default: yes if qube has any PCI device, otherwise no

memory-hotplug

Use memory hotplug for dynamic memory balancing. When enabled, qube will be started with only initial memory assigned and qmemman may give it more memory later via hotplug. When disabled, qube is started with maximum memory assigned and balloon driver in qube’s kernel returns unused memory at startup (this does delay qube startup by few seconds). Support is detected by looking for memory-hotplug-supported (empty) file in dom0-provided kernel directory, or for supported-feature.memory-hotplug feature - for in-qube kernel.

Default: yes if support in the qube kernel is detected, otherwise no.

linux-stubdom

Use Linux-based stubdomain for running device model (qemu). This makes use of recent qemu upstream version. If disabled, use MiniOS-based stubdomain with old qemu fork (aka qemu-traditional). This applies only to hvm virt_mode, for other modes it is ignored.

Default: True

tag-created-vm-with

When a qube with this feature create a new VM, it gets extra tags listed in this feature value (separated with space) automatically. Tags are added before qube creation finishes.

set-created-guivm

When a qube with this feature create a new VM, it sets to the new VM its guivm property value to set-created-guivm feature value.

supported-feature.*

Advertised “features” as supported by given VM. Template-based qubes support all features advertised by their template (in other words, to check for features supported by a template-based qube, look at supported-feature.* on its template). Supported feature x is noted as supported-feature.x with value of 1. Not supported feature is not listed at all. Other values are not supported.

supported-service.*

Advertised “qvm-services” as supported by given VM. Template-based qubes support all services advertised by their template (in other words, to check for features supported by a template-based qube, look at supported-service.* on its template). Supported qvm-service x is noted as supported-service.x with value of 1. Not supported service is not listed at all. Other values are not supported.

service.*

Enabled/disabled “qvm-services”. Values can be either 1 for enabled service, or empty string for disabled service. See qvm-service(1) for details.

supported-rpc.*

Advertised RPC services as supported by given VM. Template-based qubes support all services advertised by their template, in addition to services advertised by this very VM (in other words, to check for features supported by a template-based qube, look at supported-rpc.* on both its template and the VM itself). Supported RPC service x is noted as supported-rpc.x with value of 1. Not supported RPC service is not listed at all. Other values are not supported.

qubes-agent-version

Qubes agent version installed in the template/standalone. It contains just major.minor number (no patch number). Can be used to check if template was updated to the current qubes version after importing from older release.

stubdom-qrexec

Set this to value 1 to enable qrexec agent in the stubdomain. This feature can be set on a qube with virt_mode HVM, to support USB passthrough via stubdomain. It is ignored on non-HVM qubes. Useful for Windows qube for example.

vm-config.*

These features are exposed to qubesdb inside the qube in the /vm-config tree. Can be used to pass external configuration to inside the qube. To read, use qubesdb-read: for a feature named vm-config.feature_name use qubesdb-read /vm-config/feature_name.

app-dispvm.*

These features are used to cause a given application (identified by app ID) to open files and URLs in a disposable VM. It works by changing the value of XDG_DATA_DIRS so that applications see qvm-open-in-dvm.desktop as the only way to open any file or URL. It is known to work with Thunderbird (app ID mozilla-thunderbird.desktop) and Element (app ID im.riot.Riot for the flatpak and io.element.Element for the non-flatpak version). It may break icons in some applications. Please report a bug if app-dispvm.* breaks an application.

audio-model

Enable emulated audio for this qube. This feature can be set on a qube with virt_mode HVM to support audio passthrough (both input and output) via emulated device instead of audio agent installed in the qube itself. The value is audio model to be emulated, supported values are ich6, sb16, ac97, es1370. Recommended is ich6. This is useful to get audio in a Windows qube.

uefi

Boot the HVM qube via UEFI boot, instead of legacy one. Support for this boot mode is experimental and may not work in all the cases. It is ignored for non-HVM qubes.

Authors

Joanna Rutkowska <joanna at invisiblethingslab dot com>
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki <marmarek at invisiblethingslab dot com>
Wojtek Porczyk <woju at invisiblethingslab dot com>
Demi Marie Obenour <demi at invisiblethingslab dot com>