[Whonix-devel] survey: consideration to drop VirtualBox support for Linux users

Thu Mar 20 19:13:25 CET 2014

Hello!

Please, do not drop VirtualBox support of whonix! VirtualBox is very convenient tool and I love it. I do not want to master KVM.

20.03.2014, 08:43, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb at znmeb.net>:
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Whonix | Privacy and Anonymity OS
> <newblogpost at whonix.org> wrote:
>
>>  TLDR:
>>  As a Linux user(!), would you mind to use Whonix with KVM instead of VirtualBox?
>
> I would prefer kvm! I run Fedora Linux, which doesn't ship VirtualBox
> for licensing reasons. VirtualBox is also a lot slower than kvm.
>
>>  How important is VirtualBox to you, if you could use KVM instead?
>
> See above. As far as I'm concerned VirtualBox is the worst possible
> desktop virtualizer out there.
>
>>  What features in VirtualBox do you believe are superior to KVM?
>
> Really, since Fedora 20 has the latest virt-manager desktop tools,
> there's nothing VirtualBox has going for it except for running
> pre-existing appliances built for it.
>
>>  Which things in KVM do you dislike?
>
> It doesn't run on Windows or MacOS X ;-)
>
>>  Long:
>>  This one needs user feedback.
>>
>>  First of all, relax. Nothing has been decided yet. I am just thinking aloud. Without the controversy, there can not be real progress.
>>
>>  Maybe it is too early to even think about this yet, because running Whonix in KVM development hasn't finished yet. However, if development continues at current speed, I predict it won't be long until we can open it up for wider testing.
>>
>>  On of Whonix's biggest usability failures is, that no easy, secure and recommend way to get files inside a VM and how to backup from VMs. We only have a list of methods (https://www.whonix.org/wiki/File_Transfer) but none of these is ideal.
>>
>>  Jason just started a very much needed development discussion about this. (https://github.com/Whonix/Whonix/issues/131) I added an overview of current status and thoughts to that thread.
>>
>>  Moreover I tried to come up with usable, yet secure solution, that is.
>>
>>  Windows users:
>>
>>          - recommend to use USB extensions
>>          - they're using lots of closed source software already anyway
>>          - they're downloading and blindly trusting VirtualBox in binary form from oracle without gpg verification already anyway, the closed source USB extensions shouldn't make it any worse
>>          - we add screenshot / video instructions for installing and using this feature
>>          - file transfer question solved
>
> Putty/SCP/SFTP is how I'd do it on a Windows host, ordinary scp/sftp
> on a Linux (kvm) host. Of course, with a VirtualBox or VMware host you
> can share guest and host files with a couple of mouse clicks.
>
>>  Linux users:
>>
>>          - recommend to use KVM over VirtualBox
>>          - they're accustomed to using more difficult solutions already anyway
>>          - there are reasons for Use KVM Over VirtualBox anyway
>>          - if this solution is as simple as it seems, file transfer issue would be solved
>>
>>  Thoughts?
>
> Windows 8 (Professional) and later have something called Client
> Hyper-V available as an option. It's a decent virtualizer; not as
> sophisticated a UI as VirtualBox or VMware Workstation but adequate
> for an 'embedded' security appliance. The only problems I have with it
> are:
>
> 1. It ties up the WiFi with the guest network. You need a separate
> network connection on a laptop if you want to network from both the
> host and the guest. And I'm totally clueless as to the security
> implications of all of that.
> 2. It messes up my wireless USB mouse. That's not fatal - if I disable
> and enable it in the device manager on the host it works again.
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